What I dislike about it is the assumption about the cultures of non-humans. Like ... if you visit a dwarven citadel, there aren't dwarf clerics? Or if there are, why couldn't they adventure?
I guess its a matter of perspective. If I want a cultural setting that is nuanced, I'll play a modern RPG. If I just want a simple black and white game world to run skill play, I dont need that level of detail. I get that some people want both in old school play, but for me that is crossing the streams. YMMV.
It makes sense to me for that to have been one of the first design approaches. But it also feels inevitable that someone would say “what if I want to play an elf who’s a thief?” or whatever. And for me, race as class is just not one of the features of old-school D&D that interests me. There’s a lot that I find intriguing about old-school, most especially the different style of play from what has come to be the standard. But there are also things that I don’t think need to be there to produce that kind of experience, and I think race as class is one of them.
In B/X only demihumans have stat requirements, and those are only 9s. 9 con for dwarves, 9 int for elves, and 9 dex and con for halflings.
Yeah thats exactly the stuff im talking about. I dont want stat limitations. If it makes things seem more balanced I would even be fine if human became a class. Not far off from HeroQuest.
That makes sense. I wouldnt write off games completely because of it. DCC is a blast to play. I dont think it promotes long term campaign style that modern D&D does though. So, if its important for you to have that long term campaign style play, it makes a lot of sense to care about being an elf thief option.
I assume it stemmed from the intended milieu. The assumed setting was one focused primarily on humans, living in human lands, interacting with other humans. Most people would never meet a demihuman, but maybe you’d have a cousin who swears he saw an elf in the woods once, or a grandpa who everyone loves to hear tell the story of the time a company of dwarves passed through the village when he was a young boy. In that context, the demihumans a PC is likely to encounter are disproportionately likely to be adventurers, and there’s not a whole lot of need to model much variety in their culture.
If you are doing one shot low level D&D or a low level campaign then they are fairly fantastic from a power perspective. An elven fighter magic-user or a BX elf is pretty much mechanically superior in every way to a level 1 magic user for a one shot adventure.
