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

[Maxperson]

"Intended to be cosmopolitan" is, for some of us, a flawed premise right out the gate. Ditto "expected to be cosmopolitan".

"Capable of being cosmopolitan"? Sure, no problem.

It comes down to whether one sees the collective books (in any edition) as a toolbox from which to select specific pieces that you want to use or a complete entity that you're expected to use all of. For me, they've always just been a toolbox; a great big collection of options out of which I'll pull the pieces I want to see-have-use in this campaign, while the remainder stays in the now-closed toolbox.

The idea that 5e is intended to be cosmopolitan isn't correct. In the PHB is tells the players as the very first thing to check with the DM to see what kind of game he is going to run. In the DMG under settings it tells the DM to let the players know about the setting expectations so that they can figure out what kinds of characters they can make.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you include Half-Dragon, which is pretty much the same concept only with a different name, they've been around since 2001.

Personally, I do not, as I see the two as distinct for the same reason that "tiefling" would (and should) be different from "cambion". A half-dragon has a literal dragon parent, and will have a far longer lifespan than their non-dragon parent, making it much more like the fantasy of half-elf (magical, charismatic, but to some extent apart from both your parents' species and cultures), just as a cambion will have a much different experience because, again, one parent is literally an immortal embodiment of evil, and you are a (potentially?) immortal being yourself.

That said, yes, if we go for a looser idea of "anything that is humanoid and draconic", then half-dragon goes back at least that far if not further.

Didn't 3e also have a Draconic template that could be overlaid on to other creatures? Or was that not PC-playable.

I don't believe it was intended for PCs, but as with many things in 3e, intent and practice may be....very far apart.

Was the Argas intended to be PC-playable, or was it intended as a lawful-good monster type? It's a very long time since I read any 1981-era Dragon mag's, and I may or may not have ever seen this article.

It seems to be written with PC usage in mind--or at least it would be fully compatible with such, as far as I can tell. It has something that is, functionally, an "XP table", just in an unusual manner, because an argas only grows in power by consuming magic items. Given their LG alignment restriction, they specifically try to target evil-aligned items, and may even go on quests to hunt down such items. That would also be an unusual characteristic (LG-only) if they were exclusively monsters. One of its ultra-high-level abilities, "New Body", seems to have limitations on it of a kind I would not expect from a creature emphatically never intended to be played--it has limitations that look designed to prevent player abuse.

If you care, it's from Dragon Magazine #53, p 52-53, September 1981. There's a version up on the Internet Archive, but I'm not sure if I should link it here or not.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And as a player you should want to avoid asking for things anyone else, including the DM, dislikes.

And as a GM, you should want to avoid excluding things that your players truly love but which you personally don't have such strong feelings about.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

OK, let's flip-side this: the DM, already using everything in the book, decides to ADD something to the game that you-as-player don't like or disagree with.

What then?

Okay I had a partial response written for this but it seems it got eaten. TL;DR: The problem with the question is, there are exceedingly few things that I as a player don't like or disagree with, and the vast majority of them are things that most people would find objectionable.

By which I mean, things like sexual assault, or blatant racism, or blatant misogyny/misandry, etc. And I'm not talking subtle stuff, I'm talking "every orc is portrayed as a yellowface stereotype" or, for example, the original presentation of Hadozee and the way that that was...really really racist in a painful and unpleasant way. (WotC of course apologized for this and corrected course, but it was, as the pundits like to say these days, an "unforced error".)

So like...I genuinely don't know of any race published for 5e--even third-party!--that would be something I "don't like or disagree with." Hence, I cannot answer the question; my position is such that I embrace a huge variety of things.

For example, I personally don't care for race-as-class, but I could not care less if someone else is playing a homebrew race-as-class thing, so long as it's reasonably balanced with other options. E.g. someone once asked me if I would accept a player who wanted to play a red dragon, and I said absolutely, so long as that player in turn accepts that every character has to grow into their power, and thus they'll have to start out weakened in some way: e.g. they're a young red dragon trying to find an end-run around the age limit thing, or they're a cursed red dragon trying to weaken the curse holding back their full power, or the red dragon is trying to escape its impending bodily death by becoming "more attached" to a separate body that has to grow in power until it can become their new "true body" etc.

I'm genuinely at a loss for what could possibly be so bad that I wouldn't be able to accept it...but which wouldn't be inherently objectionable such that most reasonable people would have an issue.

 

[GrimCo]

I'm genuinely at a loss for what could possibly be so bad that I wouldn't be able to accept it...but which wouldn't be inherently objectionable such that most reasonable people would have an issue.

First thing that comes to mind is monsters with abilities that negate player agency. Now, there are few of them in MM. But homebrew one with innate dominate person that targets cha save, that one would be very nasty.