D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[DarkCrisis]

Reading the original Forgotten Realms setting book (grey box), Greenwood mentions that an elf born to 2 different sub race of elves comes out as fully one or the other.

Which I know is t really the half human etc stuff we’ve been talking about, but interesting per the setting lore.

 

[Guest 85555]

Some of us like both. Morally questionable character with dark backstories who often struggle to stay on the 'good' side of the alignment chart. In a world which is less than perfect where the aim is to fight against these awful people like slavers.

And I like both too. But I also really love playing black adder style campaigns too. I love the wuxia genre, and that is usually about using your martial power to protect the weak, which is a lot of fun in a game. But wuxia also has a lot of dark characters, some of it even focuses on them (and there are films like Duel for Gold that are all about a group of despicable characters fighting over treasure). And then there are movies about characters who are simply hell bent on revenge and live by their own code. I kind of want all of this to be an option

 

[Incenjucar]

Since 3P supplements are available and quite free to do as they will, the need for WotC themselves to produce contentious material is pretty low. We have ample proof of what D&D can be, so they don't need to explore it for us.

 

[Minigiant]

I am not the biggest 5E fan but I think a game that unified the fanbase like that and was possibly the biggest edition of D&D, certainly seems like a good compromise to me.

You can make a lot of sales and be very successful without putting the highest or top tier quality.

I'm literally doing this right now at work.

Not saying 5e is bad or that WOTC has bad designers. But WOTC is now forced to make a change and because the community is diverse there is no easy solution that does not pivot in a way that does not upset a chunk of the base. They could offer multiple options but....

 

[Scribe]

Since 3P supplements are available and quite free to do as they will, the need for WotC themselves to produce contentious material is pretty low. We have ample proof of what D&D can be, so they don't need to explore it for us.

I dont think anyone is stating otherwise. To suggest that D&D is one thing only, and that it must be made to fit within that 'one thing' that is tied to some view that is somehow both the majority of what the player base is, yet Wizards seems hesitant to design towards this supposed majority, is the question now.

Which is also to say 'design' in the loosest of terms. We are not discussing game design in this thread, or the last 4 locked ones.

It is interesting to see 5 people who would by appearances be 'socially left' all argue over the same points, and come to very different conclusions, while Wizards trying to do 'what is right' by at least some of this new player base, get either cheered, or blasted as racist, by the same 'new player base'.

Certainly it would seem that there is no clear majority view on what is or is not appropriate, correct, acceptable, racist, bigoted, or otherwise, even within the group that would (seemingly) be in alignment on some of these things.

Not saying 5e is bad or that WOTC has bad designers. But WOTC is now forced to make a change and because the community is diverse there is no easy solution that does not pivot in a way that does not upset a chunk of the base. They could offer multiple options but....

Yep. Imagine you are Wizards, reading these threads, then going into Twitter, and seeing people call you racist for trying to do what some people call the right thing. Hard pass.

 

[SkidAce]

5e is successful but it was a poor compromise.

WOTC attempted to make 5e a One Size Fits All for 50 years of D&D and hinged on individual DMs to do the fitting. it didn't happen and most of the old fans didn't adopt 5e and stayed wit their 1e, 2e, OS, and OSR games.

WOTC now recognizes that it's fanbase is diverse but don't design that way.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal...but the vast majority of the old timers I know/met switched to 5e and love it.

Simple, elegant, modernized seems to be what they/we say.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

5e is basically a perfect foundation for me. It's this ideal mix of allowing plenty of crunch, while still being streamlined and easy to pick up. Even 1DnD, Black Flag, and Advanced 5e are all building on that foundation.

But for the official content over the lifetime of 5e.... I consider that a load of mouldy sludge poured onto a great foundation. Pretty much every hope and want for the system which I had never materialised.

 

[Minigiant]

Yep. Imagine you are Wizards, reading these threads, then going into Twitter, and seeing people call you racist for trying to do what some people call the right thing. Hard pass.

Well they have many less "dangerous" options. But instead WOTC, IMHO, is taking the scared option and walked into a landmine of they own setting.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Diversity of players and diversity of playstyle are two separate things.

WotC wants to do their best to support the first, but are not really concerned about the latter with regards to their own production. That's why they went OGL/DMs Guild originally... so that other companies could fill in all the blanks that they left open with regards to the product they were making. That way players could find all the additional material they wanted to satisfy whatever that playstyle was that they preferred. It's a shame too many players and DMs have poo-poo'd that and instead just keep wishing/hoping for WotC to finally get around to it. Even though they know in their heart-of-hearts that it isn't going to happen.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Diversity of players and diversity of playstyle are two separate things.

WotC wants to do their best to support the first, but are not really concerned about the latter with regards to their own production. That's why they went OGL/DMs Guild originally... so that other companies could fill in all the blanks that they left open with regards to the product they were making. That way players could find all the additional material they wanted to satisfy whatever that playstyle was that they preferred. It's a shame too many players and DMs have poo-poo'd that and instead just keep wishing/hoping for WotC to finally get around to it. Even though they know in their heart-of-hearts that it isn't going to happen.

I'm hoping that WotC allows dndbeyond to actually host content from things like DM's guild now it's bought them. One of the biggest downsides to that platform is that it's essentially official or nothing. There are a few really bad homebrew tools, but that's about it.