Give me choices!

[EATherrian]

How about interesting tactical options in combat?

I don't play with miniatures, so my combat is more abstract then tactical anyway. If I want to play a wargame, I can go play a wargame.

 

[EATherrian]

Yeah but the point of a character shouldn't be you can only enjoy it if you like doing stuff "outside of the game."

Annoying the other players isn't in the game. It's an outside of the game event. You can still do that all you want with a character that is still effective "inside of the game."

You can feel free to make up outside of the game benefits to certain characters all you want. But no character should demand it simply because they are ineffective (or less effective) at in game tasks.

What do you mean outside the game? This is a role-playing game, not a fantasy tactical simulator. You make characters and you have adventures. This idea that the tactics and the combat is all there is to the game really blows my mind. Doesn't anyone else enjoy creating and playing their CHARACTERS anymore? If all I wanted to do was get a role, and fight I'd play an MMO (which I do and enjoy). D&D is for me to create something and run with it. Oh, and where is the bard ineffectual. Just because he doesn't have a kill button doesn't mean the character is useless. I've played many bards over the years, in all editions even 1st, and I've never seen them as useless. I don't get where this comes from.

edited for punctuation.

 

[ruleslawyer]

This gives a further example to the need for gnomes. The elves and the eladrin to me are the stuck-up version of the fay. The gnomes fill the puckish role. At least that's how I do it in my game-world. Trust me, you'd rather spend time in a gnomish delve than an elvish city. Like a museum those cities are, can't so much as sneeze without reproach.

Wouldn't it make more sense to say that the elves are the puckish fey, and the eladrins the haughty ones?

 

[EATherrian]

Wouldn't it make more sense to say that the elves are the puckish fey, and the eladrins the haughty ones?

Elves have never struck me as puckish, or even fun. From Tolkien on they are the exemplars, they are old and wise and weep for the past and fallen forests. Gnomes have always been the jokesters, even from mythology.

 

[Scribble]

What do you mean outside the game. This is a role-playing game, not a fantasy tactical simulator. You make characters and you have adventures. This idea that the tactics and the combat is all there is to the game really blows my mind. Doesn't anyone else enjoy creating and playing their CHARACTERS anymore? If all I wanted to do was get a role, and fight I'd play an MMO (which I do and enjoy). D&D is for me to create something and run with it.

Outside the game is something not determined by the rules themselves.

I agree the outside the game elements make it better then an MMO in my opinion. But no character should rely on outside of the rules elements to be effective.

Each character should have something that it can most effectively utilize the rules of the game to do. In this way, someone who only enjoys the tactical aspect can have fun with it, and someone who enjoys the role playing aspect can as well. If you make the character only fun if you like to role play heavily, it's an ineffective character overall, because one group (the tactical group) cannot utilize it.

 

[TerraDave]

I guess that's where I can't quite agree (specifically, with the "well known fantasy creature"). Even the most casual fantasy reader has some idea of what an "elf" or a "dwarf" is, either from Tolkien, Disney, or Norse mythology (dwarves), or everything from Santa Claus to Keebler to Irish folklore back to Tolkien (elves). Unless you've read Three Hearts and Three Lions, the gnome is either a lawn ornament or a Travelocity ad. Part of the problem is that, in many cases, folkloric "elves" and "gnomes" are the same thing (see JRRT's Book of Lost Tales or the Keebler ads), and the elf appears to have killed the gnome and taken his stuff, terminologically speaking.

[EDIT: Another problem is the association of the gnome with an NPC-type rather than a PC-type. Elves, dwarves, and halflings have the advantage of having PC antecedents in Tolkien's work. Had LotR not existed, I'd suggest that using elves as a PC race actually would have been just as tricky in D&D, since you'd be back to the inscrutable, sinister Sidhe archetype.]

Gnomes have their own book. It is pretty well known, as well as being nicely illustrated. And they have a stronger mythological basis then, say, hobbits/halflings.

Clearly, LotR has given the halflings an edge (sadlly), as well as the elves and dwarves. But out of a slightly larger group of mythical creatures (centuars, dragons, giants...) they are right up there, and I think aproachable and flexible enough to be a PC race (in fact, some are saying they are too flexible). Makes more sense then them being "monsters".

 

[The Little Raven]

Gnomes have their own book. It is pretty well known, as well as being nicely illustrated. And they have a stronger mythological basis then, say, hobbits/halflings.

Well, the mythological gnome goes back to Paracelsus, who imagined them as elemental earth beings, very similar to the current depiction of dwarves, which would be redundant.

 

[EATherrian]

Outside the game is something not determined by the rules themselves.

I agree the outside the game elements make it better then an MMO in my opinion. But no character should rely on outside of the rules elements to be effective.

Each character should have something that it can most effectively utilize the rules of the game to do. In this way, someone who only enjoys the tactical aspect can have fun with it, and someone who enjoys the role playing aspect can as well. If you make the character only fun if you like to role play heavily, it's an ineffective character overall, because one group (the tactical group) cannot utilize it.

Who said that the bard wasn't effective in the tactical side either. This is the thing I can't see. I've played most classes and I've never found any useless in combat. Some have been useless outside of combat, but I've found a role for each class within. Maybe I'm just easier to please than most.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The bards in our team wholly endorse and support bard song.

And they certainly are not the ones having less fun.

In my pbp (which you can read in my Story Hour), bard song becomes a mechanism for our bard player to insert all sorts of insulting editorials about NPCs into the game. He seems to have a ball doing it.

 

[GeorgeFields]

In case you weren't aware, that was an OotS reference.

I wasn't aware.