D&D 5E Gnolls: Playable or Not?

[Kobold Stew]

Who really cares? I mean *really*?
<snip>

ESPECIALLY when you add in the fact of all the INCESSANT WHINING that people have done on the boards over the years about how WotC "was horrible at communicating with us!" If they DIDN'T talk to us about what was going on, there was so much bitching and moaning that it became ridiculous. But now... they DO tell us something, and all of a sudden people are mad about it.

Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

If you need a gnoll PC write-up that badly, you can make one or buy one off of DMs Guild. But odds-are... you probably never would have even thought about it or cared if Mike hadn't mentioned it.

Defcon, you know better than this. This sort of contempt for other players is beneath you.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I find your dislike of what has been presented as odd. First off, "Firbolg's suck on these classes" does not exist. It just states which classes are more common for Firbolgs. Stating that some are rarer because of their culture and outlook. What race was stated to have an unsustainable society. It also reminds me of your dislike of lizardfolk being a stoic race that can't facially emote.

This writing is not crap nor lazy you just don't like some of the stuff you have seen or been told about. Seriously what bugs you so much about this stuff.

Goliaths and frost Giants both have unsustainable societies.

With frost Giants, A whole race can't survive on just raiding and hunting, especially one that needs as much food as they must.
Goliaths, I explained the problem with that in the other thread. Their culture is a lazy trope that wouldn't actually be likely to survive the environment they are placed in.

You're also misrepresenting my issue with Lizardfolk. Classy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Who really cares? I mean *really*?

Does anyone read through the Monster Manual and see all the fiction and flavor parts WotC added to monsters in their write-ups and get so bent out of shape over them that they refuse to use that monster? I'd be highly surprised if anyone actually did. Instead, you'd do what you've always done and just ignored it and made up your own fiction and flavor.

So gnolls are not getting a PC write-up in Volo's Guide. Okay, fine. Now assuming this was to be the case... does it *matter* that Mike gave out a reason why they at the company made the choice not to do a write-up? Had he just not mentioned their reasoning at all and we all just discovered when reading the book "Hey, they didn't make a gnoll PC write-up"... would that have been better? I don't see why it would have. We weren't getting a write-up in either case... but somehow having more information about why is somehow WORSE? Personally I find that to be utterly ridiculous.

ESPECIALLY when you add in the fact of all the INCESSANT WHINING that people have done on the boards over the years about how WotC "was horrible at communicating with us!" If they DIDN'T talk to us about what was going on, there was so much bitching and moaning that it became ridiculous. But now... they DO tell us something, and all of a sudden people are mad about it.

Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

If you need a gnoll PC write-up that badly, you can make one or buy one off of DMs Guild. But odds-are... you probably never would have even thought about it or cared if Mike hadn't mentioned it.

People have literally been expressing a hope for playable gnolls since the playtest.

also, Eberron has gnolls as mostly just wild and scary, but just as possessed of free will as any other race, and I can tell you that most groups I've seen have at least one of the "uglies" like gnolls and bugbears in it.

And I know from the wotc forum threads before they died that many ppl have gnolls in heir home campaigns, including FR games. Gnolls are also written as capable of being just pack hunter people, rather than insane demon things, in at least one FR novel.

Many players want to play a member of a race that has to struggle against a savage nature, others just like the look and style of the gnoll, or think hyena's are rad (and they really are). Whatever the reason, your angry dismissal of our disappointment is pretty weak.

The only "utterly, utterly ridiculous" thing here is your attitude toward other people.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Who really cares? I mean *really*?

Does anyone read through the Monster Manual and see all the fiction and flavor parts WotC added to monsters in their write-ups and get so bent out of shape over them that they refuse to use that monster? I'd be highly surprised if anyone actually did. Instead, you'd do what you've always done and just ignored it and made up your own fiction and flavor.

So gnolls are not getting a PC write-up in Volo's Guide. Okay, fine. Now assuming this was to be the case... does it *matter* that Mike gave out a reason why they at the company made the choice not to do a write-up? Had he just not mentioned their reasoning at all and we all just discovered when reading the book "Hey, they didn't make a gnoll PC write-up"... would that have been better? I don't see why it would have. We weren't getting a write-up in either case... but somehow having more information about why is somehow WORSE? Personally I find that to be utterly ridiculous.

ESPECIALLY when you add in the fact of all the INCESSANT WHINING that people have done on the boards over the years about how WotC "was horrible at communicating with us!" If they DIDN'T talk to us about what was going on, there was so much bitching and moaning that it became ridiculous. But now... they DO tell us something, and all of a sudden people are mad about it.

Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

If you need a gnoll PC write-up that badly, you can make one or buy one off of DMs Guild. But odds-are... you probably never would have even thought about it or cared if Mike hadn't mentioned it.

You have to love it. People demand an answer, and then get more upset at the answer.

 

[pemerton]

People demand an answer, and then get more upset at the answer.

But that's the nature of giving and receiving reasons. It happens in all areas of life, not just publishing - people ask for the reasons behind decisions (especially decisions they don't like), and if they think the reasons are bad then they criticise them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

But that's the nature of giving and receiving reasons. It happens in all areas of life, not just publishing - people ask for the reasons behind decisions (especially decisions they don't like), and if they think the reasons are bad then they criticise them.

Sure. I just think the reaction to the reason given seems a bit extreme. I mean, what reason could he have given that would have been accepted? It basically boiled down to "we didn't want to do gnolls as a playable race" which is evident.

And I can understand folks not liking the decision or the reason given for that decision, but there's a pretty easy fix to solve the problem. And I also think that people seem to be taking offense to the reason given...so that's a bit bizarre to me. As if the decision offends their sensibilities....it's odd.

 

[akr71]

As written in the Monster Manual, gnolls are a bit of a stretch as a playable race, with the demonic origin & nomadic destroyer thing going on. It also seems to hint that all gnolls exist because gnoll fangs creating them from hyenas rather than breeding like most other humanoids, though that could just be my interpretation.

Regardless, if one of my players wanted to play a gnoll - more specifically, a non-chaotic evil gnoll, I would let them. We would work together to create a framework for it as a playable race or find one on the DM's Guild or somewhere else on the web. I would prefer it to be not a one-of-a-kind creature so that there could be others like it in the world. Maybe its entire clan differs from the typical gnoll, rejecting Yeenoghu... who knows.

Do I need WotC to come up with it for me? No, I'm sure I could find an equally balanced version out there.
Would it make my like a lot easier? For sure.

This kind of stuff goes hand in hand with the canon thread for me. If WotC says gnolls are too demonic to be playable in 5e FR, that's fine. I'm free to ignore what they say and do whatever I want in my version of the Realms.

 

[pemerton]

what reason could he have given that would have been accepted? It basically boiled down to "we didn't want to do gnolls as a playable race" which is evident.

I guess there are two possible reasons - at least, two possible reasons that are easily intuited as making sense from WotC's point of view.

The first is "We don't think that publishing playable gnolls makes sense commercially". To me that seems an improbable reasons, but maybe they have data from surveys, DDI, etc that shows that gnolls are at the bottom of the pile as far as market demand for a playable version is concerned. (Do more people really want to play kobolds than gnolls? Seems strange to me, but then there's no accounting for taste!)

The second is "We don't think publishing more than X playable races makes sense commercially, and when we chose X from our vast pool of many more than X possibilities, we didn't choose gnolls because of [insert aesthetic reasons, results of coin tosses, etc here]." I think what we have been told is, in effect, this second. And I think people are disagreeing with the aesthetic reason that has been given.

I also think that people seem to be taking offense to the reason given...so that's a bit bizarre to me. As if the decision offends their sensibilities....it's odd.

Taking offence is silly, agreed. I think that feeling an offence to one's sensibilities is less silly, because the reason given has an aesthetic dimension, and aesthetic responses implicate sensibility.

That said, it would seem a pretty straightforward matter to adapt 3E or 4e gnolls to 5e, and I would be surprised if many of those who are feeling upset by this decision don't have access to one or the other of those earlier iterations.

As written in the Monster Manual, gnolls are a bit of a stretch as a playable race, with the demonic origin & nomadic destroyer thing going on.

There's always been this weird thing where CE is listed as a playable alignment and yet typically CE critters are often seen as not playable in virtue of that. (With drow as something of a long-standing exception.)

I don't really get it. And personally I don't really feel this strong contrast between gnolls and orcs, especially as orcs have been presented since 3E changed them from LE to CE.

But I agree that making up one's own gnoll wouldn't seem to be that much of a challenge.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I guess there are two possible reasons - at least, two possible reasons that are easily intuited as making sense from WotC's point of view.

The first is "We don't think that publishing playable gnolls makes sense commercially". To me that seems an improbable reasons, but maybe they have data from surveys, DDI, etc that shows that gnolls are at the bottom of the pile as far as market demand for a playable version is concerned. (Do more people really want to play kobolds than gnolls? Seems strange to me, but then there's no accounting for taste!)

The second is "We don't think publishing more than X playable races makes sense commercially, and when we chose X from our vast pool of many more than X possibilities, we didn't choose gnolls because of [insert aesthetic reasons, results of coin tosses, etc here]." I think what we have been told is, in effect, this second. And I think people are disagreeing with the aesthetic reason that has been given.

Taking offence is silly, agreed. I think that feeling an offence to one's sensibilities is less silly, because the reason given has an aesthetic dimension, and aesthetic responses implicate sensibility.

That said, it would seem a pretty straightforward matter to adapt 3E or 4e gnolls to 5e, and I would be surprised if many of those who are feeling upset by this decision don't have access to one or the other of those earlier iterations.

Yeah, I think your assessment is pretty accurate. The second possibility you gave seems to me to be what would be inferred by most.

And I also agree it's an easy fix. I have a group of gnoll NPCs that I constructed as PCs, and I whipped up a racial package for gnolls in a matter of minutes. I don't have my gaming stuff at the moment, or I'd summarize it here.

 

[akr71]

There's always been this weird thing where CE is listed as a playable alignment and yet typically CE critters are often seen as not playable in virtue of that. (With drow as something of a long-standing exception.)

I think - and this is really just my gut feeling, nothing else - that the demonic nature (or monstrous nature for non-gnolls) has stripped them of much of their reasoning and/or free-will leaving them as not much more than a blood thirsty killing beast. It is much easier for players to have no moral quandary about slaughtering hoards of the things. They are easy for a new DM to use as well - wherever I place these hyena-demons, they attack innocents on site. Adventurers to the rescue! Playing an intelligent, free willed CE character or NPC is a very tricky thing in my opinion. Do you hide your true nature? If not, why would anyone co-operate with you or trust you? Why would you co-operate with others? Not impossible, but tricky.