I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

[Crimson Longinus]

Pretty much every edition of D&D has been quite bad and/or deeply inconsistent at this. 3E arguably least, because it used the "template" concept quite heavily.

The big problem with the "template" concept and the "NPCs use the same rules as PCs" concept (which D&D has never consistently stuck to, again late 1E AD&D and 3E are probably when it used it most but still not consistently) is that they can generate incredible amounts of largely-irrelevant work for the DM, and the D&D DM already has a ton more paperwork to do than most DMs of modern RPGs. Templates could probably be revived and simplified so that they didn't, but "NPCs use the same rules as the PCs" is a fundamentally cursed/make-work concept that RPGs have been attempting to escape from in various ways since the late 1980s (albeit it wasn't abandoned "en masse" until, like, the 2000s).

Hell, one big help to any RPG wanting to use a "template" concept would simply be making a free online monster/NPC builder for your game that let you just select a creature and apply one-click apply a template to it - I believe the old 4E DDI might have been able to do that, or something very close, but the half-developed mess that is everything on D&D Beyond that doesn't go on a player's character sheet can't do it.

My theoretical preference is for the PC and NPC rules to work similarly ar at least very closely so. I however understand that this is often impractical and in many cases the PC stats have a lot of information that is just not needed for a NPC mook #6. So I'm fine with streamlining the NPC rules for usability, but I see this just as mechanical shorthand, not an indication that NPCs and PCs are somehow fundamentally different, and I dislike if this streamlinging goes so far that NPCs start to feel like they're different sort of things than the PCs. For example I greatly dislike many of the newer caster NPCs having "spell like" powers that work differently than the spells of the PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Had B2 open recently for some other quotes...

Page 6: The background information for the players and how they compare to typical people.

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In the 1e PHB (page 17), half-orc PCs are explicitly different from the usual offspring of orcs and humans:

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In the DMG (page 12), the PCs are supposed to be viable and NPCs use a different method of getting ability scores from PCs:

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The 1e DMG also contains NPCs with no PC analog (Alchemist, Sage).

To be fair, none of that says that PCs are a different order of being from NPCs of the same species that have abilities NPCs can't and should be adjudicated under a different standard. With the addition of a few skills (to accommodate professions like alchemist and sage) any NPC could be built using PC rules, and thus the reverse is also true. Other games based on B/X and other versions of D&D of similar providence have done so.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, and to be honest it makes me a little sad. Different editions all called D&D simply shouldn't IMO be completely different games.

I just don't really see them as completely different games. Different games, yes. Not completely different games.

Like, Tears of the Kingdom doesn't have a ton of gameplay in common with the Legend of Zelda; but at their core, they're about a heroic kid with a sword finding special tools to clear out dungeons to find magical McGuffins.

D&D is more like Final Fantasy; lots of elements carry over from game to game, but each of them are distinctly their own thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not really Oberoni IF you don't want them to put in rules simply because you think that it will both A) make people mad and B) they'll just screw it up anyway.

I mean, the one rule from 5e2024 someone pointed out was "Just use 10s for all stats for average commoner NPCs". That's terrible advice! Definitely don't do that! "No rules" is better than that rule!

To me the obvious answer to that is, "make better rules".

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just don't really see them as completely different games. Different games, yes. Not completely different games.

Like, Tears of the Kingdom doesn't have a ton of gameplay in common with the Legend of Zelda; but at their core, they're about a heroic kid with a sword finding special tools to clear out dungeons to find magical McGuffins.

D&D is more like Final Fantasy; lots of elements carry over from game to game, but each of them are distinctly their own thing.

They're different enough IMO that they should have different names. At least, 1e/2e, 3e/3.5e, 4e, and 5e/5.5e are to my mind different games from each other, and would have different names if they weren't all owned by the same megacorp.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To me the obvious answer to that is, "make better rules".

That's the problem though. They did. You're busily complaining about them lol.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's the problem though. They did. You're busily complaining about them lol.

IMO those are not better rules.

 

[TwoSix]

IMO those are not better rules.

One group's "better rules" is another group's "worse rules". Hence, do "no rules" when you can get away with it.

"What's the correct way to stat out non-combat NPCs to enhance verisimilitude around species" is sufficiently small potatoes that they can get away with it.

 

[The Firebird]

That's the problem though. They did. You're busily complaining about them lol.

Hm? The rule in question is the one printed in 5e24.

 

[Distracted DM]

The TSR philosophy on these things(even if they don't follow it perfectly) is my standard. I see no reason why putting dwarves, elves, humans, etc in the MM, as they were in those days, as an entry with general information, would in any way preclude them for being used as a PC species. It doesn't stop people from playing goblins, for example. Furthermore, having these species exist in the PH but not in the MM artificially separates and "raises them up" in comparison to others. IMO 4e and 5e have been moving in a direction contrary to my preference in this (and other) areas.

Yup. I largely agree, but because of my mode of play nowadays (largely online with half a dozen different games and with new players occasionally coming along bringing their own assumptions), I feel the need to bend with the trends rather than isolate my table from them. Which isn't a very comfortable place, since I dislike a lot of said trends.. but I gotta make do since I make a living from it