Not all throwbacks to the old days are good. By that argument you wouldn't mind THAC0 either...
No, if we look at fantasy games more generally, it's very common to separate elf night vision from dwarf "infravision". Low-light vision isn't some outlier or strange thing.
To me, that 3e adapted that was a very good thing indeed. Not that I would have said so at the time. It's actually not until now - with 5e - it's very clear that simplifying everything into darkvision goes a step too far.
It upends the balance - suddenly humans, halflings and dragonborn are exceptions. That also means your comparison is halting. In the good old days, humans were a much stronger norm. Playing a demihuman was more exotic then than now. This was even built right into the rules, with level limits for everybody except humans.
I'd argue that now in 5e more races
need to lack darkvision.
Correct, not all throwbacks are good. But with only one type of low-light vision, elves would naturally receive it because they've always had superior vision. I can't comment on other RPGs specifically, although Pathfinder will naturally follow the 3.5e model, so I'd be interested in your references, although D&D lore would still indicate that they were originally designed with darkvision (infravision).
If you go with the 4e answer, there's the oddity that whenever there is at least some light available, those with low-light vision are the same as those with darkvision. Where there is "no" light, they are the same as those with normal vision. Sounds OK, but I still think it's a little strange that there is no middle point where they have disadvantage on their Perception checks like the others.
If it's the 3e version, then it depends on how you adjudicate darkvision. Does darkvision start where the light stops, or is it a straight 60' from the creature? If it's a straight 60', then a creature with low-light vision in the 3e mold can see better in a dungeon with low light than somebody with darkvision if the light source has a radius of more than 15'. For example, a hooded lantern with a radius of 30' bright, 30' dim would give somebody with low-light vision 60' of bright, and 60' of dim light, compared to the creature with darkvision who can now only see as far as a normal creature with 30' bright, 30' feet dim because that's the extent that their darkvision would work. Again it gets a bit strange.
The nightvision proposal keeps it very simple in that it works exactly like darkvision, other than not working in total darkness such as that underground with no light source.
All of this to reduce the number of creatures that have darkvision by two.
Your argument is that more
need to lack darkvision, but you haven't explained why, other than you don't like the fact that there are more PC races that have it than don't. The fact is, there have always been more PC races that had superior vision than didn't, whether it was the OD&D to 2e version, the 3/3.5e version, or 4e version, of the core races, only humans and part of the halflings lacked it.
The original post had some specific flavor and mechanical reasons that he disliked it. [MENTION=6676774]bacon[/MENTION]-Bits points out that there doesn't seem to be a significant design cost to it, that it's more of a flavor choice, and I detailed the mechanics in detail. There are few circumstances where it will really matter, which is why the designers probably did away with the extra complexity.
Obviously you're welcome to do what you'd like. I'm just trying to understand, after the actual differences between darkvision/no darkvision have been outlined, what real benefit is gained by adding complexity of another type of vision. I am always in favor of altering things based on your campaign setting lore, and if that's the only reason, that's fine but it's not a compelling argument that there's an inherent problem with the current rules system that needs to be "fixed."
Playing a human was the norm back then, and you're right, they helped enforce that with rules like class and level limits. I do maintain some of that in my campaign, for example dwarves have magic resistance like they used to, and they can't be sorcerers. They can be wizards, but they have some disadvantages as such.
But ultimately, it's more a question of the world. My players all have at least 3 characters, and two of them have to be human. We don't have a mechanical rule to support that, it's just a matter of demographics in our campaign. The village that the players come from is 85%+ human. There are some travelers, and a few natives that are non-human, with halflings being the largest group. We also don't have dragonborn at all, tieflings are quite different (and virtually indistinguishable from humans like they used to be), and gnomes and half-orcs are NPC races only at this point. Of course, there are times where only the non-humans are playing in a given session, and that's fine. Our goal with this approach is to populate the world with a cross-section of characters that reflects the demographics themselves, thus making their non-human characters more "special."
That doesn't mean everybody should play this way. But if your campaign allows all of the races in the PHB, and especially if it includes those from other sources like Volo's, and you allow the players to freely select them, then you may not have many, if any, humans in your party.
