D&D General Do people like re-skinning?

[FitzTheRuke]

Might not have been the terms I would have used, but those definitely seem like about the right increments.

Yeah? Got better names? I'd like to hear them! I'm not attached to those names.

 

[prabe]

Yeah? Got better names? I'd like to hear them! I'm not attached to those names.

Genuinely hadn't thought about terms much, probably wouldn't have thought of "fluff" and "skin" as being nonequivalent. No real ideas for better terms, and I genuinely agree about the increments (though now that I think about it the distances between them might not be equivalent, but that doesn't make them bad or wrong increments).

 

[Maxperson]

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think the thing I am gonna take from this thread is:

Refluffing = Changing the story of a mechanic without touching the mechanic. (Fun!)
Reskinning = Changing the story of a mechanic with some appropriate mechanical tweaks to correct anywhere it might not fit perfectly, or to push the new skin a little further from where it started.
Light Homebrew = Building new things using existing things as a base, but mix/matching liberally.
Full Homebrew = Building new things from the ground up

Obviously, the scale slides all the way between the four, I would think.

This is how I would do it.

Refluffing = Changing the story of a mechanic without touching the mechanic or its appearance. (Fun!)
Reskinning = Changing the appearance of a mechanic without any mechanical changes. Story may or may not change.
Light Homebrew = Building new things using existing things as a base, by making slight changes to existing mechanics, as well as possible new story and fluff.
Full Homebrew = Building new things from the ground up.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Honestly, I don't feel quite as strongly about this as I may come across, but it's still weird to me that nobody in this thread would even see the problem with it.

I mean, the DM should know the rules well enough that they can come up with the right stats for something with a few minutes on a scratch pad. It's not like the stats for a monster in the book are any better than what a DM can come up with in that time. In fact, the stats in the book are obviously less appropriate, since they were never intended to represent this new monster that you just invented. There's nothing wrong with homebrewing new content, and homebrewing a new description onto an existing stat block is not any less of a homebrew than coming up with accurate stats for the new thing you just invented.

What about the DM's that are just learning?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What about the DM's that are just learning?

A new DM should be careful to not pick up bad habits. Nobody should ever just re-skin, unless their players are even less invested in the game than they are. Instead, a new DM should focus on learning how to interpret stat blocks, so that they can better represent the monsters they're coming up with.

But honestly, if they don't even know how to analyze a stat block yet, then they don't need to worry about coming up with new monsters yet either. The ones in the book should be sufficient for quite a while.

 

[MGibster]

I still don't get the opposition to reskinning. In what way is it detrimental to the game? How does it have a negative impact on the amount of fun everyone at the table is having?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I still don't get the opposition to reskinning. In what way is it detrimental to the game? How does it have a negative impact on the amount of fun everyone at the table is having?

I don't know about you, but when I invest my time and energy into a campaign, I have an expectation that the DM is treating me fairly and not just picking random numbers out of a hat.

When I attack a monster, or try to hide from it, or charm it; I expect that success or failure will be determined by my actions, and the qualities of my character, and the DM's honest interpretation of the qualities of my opponent. Reskinning leads to biased results on that last count, which damages the integrity of the entire process.

 

[Istbor]

I am constantly doing to to spells, to make NPCs unique, and encouraging PC spell casters to always keep re-skinning in mind.

I am pretty open about re-skinning weapons too. Don't want a rapier? A Sabre at a 1d8 sounds better though? Okay!

 

[MGibster]

I don't know about you, but when I invest my time and energy into a campaign, I have an expectation that the DM is treating me fairly and not just picking random numbers out of a hat.

When I attack a monster, or try to hide from it, or charm it; I expect that success or failure will be determined by my actions, and the qualities of my character, and the DM's honest interpretation of the qualities of my opponent. Reskinning leads to biased results on that last count, which damages the integrity of the entire process.

I have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to picking random numbers out of hat. That's not reskinning. Let's say I create a low level villain called the Clock Maker who creates a bunch of hostile automatons for the PCs to deal with. I decide I want them to be the same power level and intelligence of a goblin so I use those for the automatons' stat block. In what way have I treated you unfairly?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Let's say I create a low level villain called the Clock Maker who creates a bunch of hostile automatons for the PCs to deal with. I decide I want them to be the same power level and intelligence of a goblin so I use those for the automatons' stat block. In what way have I treated you unfairly?

What is it about the automaton's nature that allows it to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action? Do you really think that a Dexterity of 14 is the best way to represent the natural agility of a clockwork automaton? Should it really have a Charisma score of 8? Why isn't it immune to psychic damage, or poison, the way that other constructs are?

If you had actually done the job of statting them out on their own merit, it's highly unlikely that they would have ended up being mechanically equivalent to a goblin. Whenever I interact with one of these automatons, there's a good chance that things will play out not based on the inherent qualities of the participants involved, but on the basis of your being too lazy to take your role seriously. You might as well be picking random numbers out of a hat, for all that those number mean anything.