Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1971998" data-attributes="member: 7240">Why should our personal experiences match? There are a lot of D&D players out there with a lot of different tastes. The core rules should serve all of us.I had assumed that my particular gaming priorities were self-evident from my posts. I didn't expect that I would have to clarify that my problems with the rules are only problems for people who care about what I care about. Isn't this the point of view of everyone on the thread? Others are complaining that the monk is inflexible in its advancement and multiclassing rules; while, like my statement about culture, this is objectively true, this is obviously only a problem for people who care about a particular kind of mechanical flexibility. It is true that the monk is culturally out of place. That's indisputable. However, that flaw only matters to a particular subset of players that you are not part of. Similarly, the monk has narrow advancement options and cannot multiclass. That's also indisputable. However, again, that flaw only matters to a particular subset of players that I am not part of. In my view, classes in the core rules should meet the standards of all of D&D's major constituencies, including mine. For this reason, I think the monk is an inappropriate choice for the core rules without additional Oriental material added to them.The boundary you posit between mechanics and flavour is not the clear boundary you imagine it to be for people who share my gaming priorities. For instance, D&D uses the European system of elements: Earth/Air/Water/Fire. An Oriental campaign needs to use a five-element system: Earth/Water/Fire/Metal/Wood. Is that mechanics or flavour? Seems to me that in order to maintain a sense of Oriental flavour, mechanics adjustments must be made. While for you and your players, these things are "a piece of cake." Many of these things would not work at all amongst the people with whom I game. Your idea of an equivalency between spell books and fetishes/totems is a huge problem. Are you suggesting that a shaman-wizard who lost his equipment would lose the capacity to recall/cast his spells? How would a class like that retain the flavour of a shaman?Actually, it kind of does. Some cultures have big fire evocations in their myths; others do not. I would agree. But the point I was making was not just about the Samurai: my point was: what is a paladin in feudal Japan? A paladin in feudal Japan is about as reasonable as a Monk in feudal Europe.I'm wrong about what my friends and I enjoy? Neat. I had no idea you were qualified to determine that. The fact that a few cursory name changes are enough to give you and your players a sense of cultural flavour does not mean that these cursory name changes are sufficient for everyone else. I really take exception to your view that non-European cultures can be represented by giving European things different names and leaving it at that. But I'm not going to tell you to play your game differently.As you yourself point out, Oriental Adventures and Nyambe are available resources. And they are there for good reason.So, the absence of rules for spirit possession in the core doesn't really trouble you? Given that fighting spirits is the main thing, by definition, that a shaman does, I would think someone wanting to represent a shaman would find it problematic that the class they were using didn't interact with spirits at all. I also happen to use the SHB, a book whose purchase I endorse. I think you're unnecessarily distinguishing between these two things. At what point did you see me denying this? Howard's North Africa and Near East come from European myth. My whole case has been that the core represents the European myth tradition. It seems to me that you and your players can happily feel that a campaign has a particular cultural flavour as long as the names of things in that culture are affixed to their closest approximation in the core rules. I'm glad you can enjoy the game that way. But many people can't. And that's okay. You can't "prove" to us that we will enjoy playing D&D your way. Most of us have interacted with campaigns like yours at one time or another and not especially enjoyed them.It is my view that the core rules should work both for people with your style and people with mine; and they generally do. The Monk, sadly, is a bit of an exception.</blockquote>

Verification