D&D General If faith in yourself is enough to get power, do we need Wizards and Warlocks etc?

[Vaalingrade]

Oh, I'm absolutely in the latter camp (for D&D). I don't even know how you'd start with the former approach, it would just feel weird.

I'm absolutely the former. Because I will feat and multiclass and punch and bend and burn the system until I get what I'm looking for. The designers' resistance to fantasy concepts post 1985 does not deter me, it fuels me by the glorious golden power of spite.

My 3.5 binder was thicker than the Core 3.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Its not about disparaging playstyles. Its about insisting that D&D specifically isn't allowed to have one in the book, even though just about every other RPG does.

What do you mean D&D isn't allowed to have one? If the designers wanted to prescribe a particular play style, they would have published it. Seems like their design philosophy is to allow for a variety of playstyles, which incidently opens the game up to the largest possible audience. They don't want a niche, they want the whole market.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm absolutely the former. Because I will feat and multiclass and punch and bend and burn the system until I get what I'm looking for. The designers' resistance to fantasy concepts post 1985 does not deter me, it fuels me by the glorious golden power of spite.

My 3.5 binder was thicker than the Core 3.

Fair. I’m totally comfortable with houseruling and homebrewing, but it’s generally in the lines of “I want to play a class X, but they have some pieces of class Y and Z and they also have a totally different role”. Then the backstory flows from that.

The closest I’ve come recently to brewing from concept was my Eberron House Medani Master Inquisitive, but even that had a mechanical hook of “Int and Wis are both primary stats” and “casts ONLY divination spells”.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What do you mean D&D isn't allowed to have one? If the designers wanted to prescribe a particular play style, they would have published it. Seems like their design philosophy is to allow for a variety of playstyles, which incidently opens the game up to the largest possible audience. They don't want a niche, they want the whole market.

Yeah, I know, and I think making the game super-vague so they appeal to "everyone" makes it a worse game than it would be if they picked a lane, again like just about every other RPG.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Yeah, I know, and I think making the game super-vague so they appeal to "everyone" makes it a worse game than it would be if they picked a lane, again like just about every other RPG.

Sounds like you just don't want to play D&D then? Because I don't see any world where WotC decides to "pick a lane."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sounds like you just don't want to play D&D then? Because I don't see any world where WotC decides to "pick a lane."

I don't want to play WotC D&D, that's for sure.

 

[Stormonu]

I don't know if anyone has brought this up, but I just assumed WotC had added in the "believe in a source instead of a specific god" because some tables don't want to deal with the religious subject at the table and it was an "out" for these groups. I know that getting into aspects of worship and religions is something several of my gamers would like to avoid and that has been why I've allowed the Power from Forces for characters instead of the "Pick a god and stick with it" method.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know if anyone has brought this up, but I just assumed WotC had added in the "believe in a source instead of a specific god" because some tables don't want to deal with the religious subject at the table and it was an "out" for these groups. I know that getting into aspects of worship and religions is something several of my gamers would like to avoid and that has been why I've allowed the Power from Forces for characters instead of the "Pick a god and stick with it" method.

If that were a problem for my table, we just wouldn't use divine classes.

 

[mamba]

I don't know if anyone has brought this up, but I just assumed WotC had added in the "believe in a source instead of a specific god" because some tables don't want to deal with the religious subject at the table

I assume that this is why, but to me it makes the class incoherent (and the others too, if you think it through, hence the thread title)

To me this is something for the table to figure out, if they do not want gods at all, not an out the book should build in

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I assume that this is why, but to me it makes the class incoherent

To me this is something for the table to figure out, if they do not want gods at all, not an out the book should build in

I am struggling to understand this position. So because the designers did not want to marry class mechanics to the stories that could be told using the mechanics, this is "wrong" and should not have been included in the book/rules? To me, this seems incredibly short-sighted. I'm glad that D&D is not a video game. I'm glad I get to choose, and am empowered to choose, the kinds of stories I want to tell.

This is not "building an out." This is being inclusive of all possible play styles and acknowledgment that there are many ways this tool can be used to create fun at each table.