D&D 5E D&D Celebration Schedule Announced

WotC has posted the schedule for it's D&D Celebration online event taking place from 18th-20th September.

The event includes a range of panels and live games, including sessions on Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, mental health, inclusive dungeon design, and including asian stories in your games. These include people such as Daniel Kwan (Asians Represent) and Sara Thompson (The Combat Wheelchair), who have both spoken publicly about problematic issues in D&D.

 

[R_Chance]

Unless someone is coming to confiscate your Players Handbook, you can just ignore those rules.

From my cold dead hands!

And that's when the fight really starts

 

[Ancalagon]

Cause how your eyeballs work and whether or not you need to sleep isn't dependent on nurture, while your physical strength, intelligence, and other ability scores are.

Your stats are dependent on more than how your were nurtured. Why is a tiger stronger and faster than I am? Why is "insert athlete X" so much taller than I am (and stronger). Nurture plays a role, of course, but genes do too.

In traditional D&D, all humans have the same stat distributions. We are all the sames. But a dwarf... a dwarf is different. Not as different as a tiger, but still different.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Physical strength being determined by nurture is certainly an "interesting" theory, but I'm not sure it bears much relation to reality. While a nutritionally deprived child will end up with stunted growth, you can't overcome genetic differences just by upping your potassium intake, no matter your tabula rasa beliefs.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Physical strength being determined by nurture is certainly an "interesting" theory, but I'm not sure it bears much relation to reality. While a nutritionally deprived child will end up with stunted growth, you can't overcome genetic differences just by upping your potassium intake, no matter your tabula rasa beliefs.

Strength and intelligence are both pretty complex areas re: genetics. Intelligence is fascinating in that despite being obviously inheritable, so many genes are involved that it's very possible for two smart people to have a dumb kid, or vice-versa. Strength requires both nurture and nature, but you don't really get people who are particularly strong who don't do physical activity (nurture), for example. Just some people put on some kinds of muscle extremely easily, and some find it very hard (even that sometimes involves nurture, of course - some people are always going to skip leg day, or have dietary habits which cause issues with this, or over-train and just damage things).

The actual role of genetics in strength is not well-studied, though. You seem to be assuming it is and that it's massive. That's a misconception. It's kind of shocking how little genetics and athletic performance have been studied.

Here's an interesting article on it which talks about how poorly-studied it is: Genetics and Strength Training: Just How Different Are We? • Stronger by Science

D&D totally refuses to engage with the idea that you can train strength the way you can in real life, though. I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing, though I very much doubt that, had D&D come from a more jock-ish background, STR would be a fixed stat in the way it has been in most editions. It does mirror fantasy fiction of the era (and indeed is justifiable by suggesting all D&D characters are already doing keep-fit routines to maintain "peak strength", as implausible as that may be).

 

[QuentinGeorge]

All very interesting but in the context of D&D when we are speaking about "race" we are not speaking about the murky real-world concept, we are speaking about species. Humans, elves, orcs, gnomes et al are more distinct than the varieties of humans here.

Human vs. Half-Orc is more like lion vs liger.

 

[Weiley31]

Human vs. Half-Orc is more like lion vs liger.

And Kobold Press gives us Bearfolk oh my!

 

[Kannik]

Hmm, I'm not sure why some seem to be jumping to the idea that removing racial bonuses (and reworking the game mechanics and nomenclature around 'race/species/ancestry/background/etc') equates to "all 'races' will be exactly the same". There are plenty of ways to differentiate different species and different ancestries/upbringing that do not involve attribute bonuses or penalties, and they do it in far more interesting, inventive, and imaginative ways.

I've written about it before, but I feel that attribute bonuses are one of the least interesting and effective ways to differentiate between species. For example, while perhaps the average Wookie is big and burly, just as we have amazing diversity of body types among humans, why wouldn't we have the same with Wookies? Especially as we are playing heroes, who are by and large out of the ordinary. Not to mention, as others have been noting in this thread, that there is much more to an attribute than just meat. Upbringing, environment, interests, nourishment, and above all, training, interest, and development play a huge role in determining one's capabilities within the auspices of a particular attribute. So having some bonus or penalty be assigned to an entire species is both unnecessarily restrictive but also kinda weird.

(To forestall any question of "well, what's left then to differentiate?"... plenty! There are a tonne of interestingly designed stunts, abilities, talents, gifts, and so on that could reflect culture, style, worldview, and even the meat part of the species. My gaming group has been using this alternate type of system for many games now, and we have found the characters much more distinct, flavorful, and, best of all, exciting during play than "well, I got a +2 in Int." )

 

[Remathilis]

All very interesting but in the context of D&D when we are speaking about "race" we are not speaking about the murky real-world concept, we are speaking about species. Humans, elves, orcs, gnomes et al are more distinct than the varieties of humans here.

Human vs. Half-Orc is more like lion vs liger.

Yeah but ligers are bred for their skills in magic!

 

[ChaosOS]

Rather than getting into another thread explaining why a gnome with 20 str is already possible, I think what's more notable is not only Daniel Kwan speaking but will get a direct opportunity to publicly address the controversy

 

[Kannik]

Yeah but ligers are bred for their skills in magic!

And for their shields and blades and striking claws and upgradable weapon systems and... oh wait, not those kind of ligers?

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

It's a little of both: some celebrity games, but they are also running AL tables, including their first online Epic event set in Icewind Dale.

Which game would be the epic event? I can't find any description matching that (but I'm also a bloody newb).

 

[Haldrik]

Rather than getting into another thread explaining why a gnome with 20 str is already possible, I think what's more notable is not only Daniel Kwan speaking but will get a direct opportunity to publicly address the controversy

Asian cultures are cool, and I want to learn about these cultures from the perspectives of Asian themselves.

I am glad WotC invited Kwan.

To have someone who is an outsider to pretend to represent it, seems like a painful waste of time.

Let a native of a culture who is more intimate talk about it!

 

[Parmandur]

Which game would be the epic event? I can't find any description matching that (but I'm also a bloody newb).

Honestly don't know, maybe the AL initiates amongst us would know more...?

 

[marv]

The limitation of Asians Represent On Oriental Adventures is that none of the panelists seems to have researched their topic before starting. For example, they incorrectly assumed Comeliness was created just for OA. As a result, it’s a problematic podcast to listen to, despite it winning some award. Nor do they seem to understand the state of game writing at the time OA was written nor even what the fundamental purpose of an RPG source book is. As is, the listener needs to evaluate each opinion expressed in the podcast with a grain of salt as they make fun of someone’s labor if love, from the comfort of decades of hindsight. It would be better to have a more scholarly analysis of OA.

As far as I can tell, OA was a sincere effort at including Asian cultures into your D&D campaign. That is certainly how I received it back when it was released. Now that is something to celebrate!

 

[Marandahir]

The limitation of Asians Represent On Oriental Adventures is that none of the panelists seems to have researched their topic before starting. For example, they incorrectly assumed Comeliness was created just for OA. As a result, it’s a problematic podcast to listen to, despite it winning some award. Nor do they seem to understand the state of game writing at the time OA was written nor even what the fundamental purpose of an RPG source book is. As is, the listener needs to evaluate each opinion expressed in the podcast with a grain of salt as they make fun of someone’s labor if love, from the comfort of decades of hindsight. It would be better to have a more scholarly analysis of OA.

As far as I can tell, OA was a sincere effort at including Asian cultures into your D&D campaign. That is certainly how I received it back when it was released. Now that is something to celebrate!

Seems like projecting a nitpick into cause to dismantle the entire argument. Your argument is especially troubling when you're standing up to defend blatantly racist texts and their white authors from criticism by people who's cultures were caricatured by the book. Shame on you.

 

[Parmandur]

The limitation of Asians Represent On Oriental Adventures is that none of the panelists seems to have researched their topic before starting. For example, they incorrectly assumed Comeliness was created just for OA. As a result, it’s a problematic podcast to listen to, despite it winning some award. Nor do they seem to understand the state of game writing at the time OA was written nor even what the fundamental purpose of an RPG source book is. As is, the listener needs to evaluate each opinion expressed in the podcast with a grain of salt as they make fun of someone’s labor if love, from the comfort of decades of hindsight. It would be better to have a more scholarly analysis of OA.

As far as I can tell, OA was a sincere effort at including Asian cultures into your D&D campaign. That is certainly how I received it back when it was released. Now that is something to celebrate!

They actually did an executive summary podcast about a month ago, where they admitted some of those early stumbles and talked about the learning process of developing their close reading. Worth checking out.

Comeliness was still truly, truly terrible.

 

[marv]

They actually did an executive summary podcast about a month ago, where they admitted some of those early stumbles and talked about the learning process of developing their close reading. Worth checking out.

Comeliness was still truly, truly terrible.

That’s reassuring to hear. Do you have a link?

 

[Parmandur]

That’s reassuring to hear. Do you have a link?

Here you go:

Episode 21: Reflecting on Oriental Adventures and Al-Qadim

Daniel, Steve, and Ammar shared their experiences reading Oriental Adventures and Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures on Twitch.

oneshotpodcast.com

 

[Remathilis]

Comeliness was still truly, truly terrible.

That is a true statement even without an -ism baggage. It's a useless, fiddley game stat that is horribly subjective at best and doesn't work like any other ability score in the game.

 

[marv]

That is a true statement even without an -ism baggage. It's a useless, fiddley game stat that is horribly subjective at best and doesn't work like any other ability score in the game.

Agreed. Added an unnecessary complexity. There’s a reason didn’t make it into 2nd Edition.