D&D 5E Jeremy Crawford Discusses Details on Custom Origins

[tetrasodium]

Nope. The world is mine. They write source material that I pick and choose from to save myself some work. Where there are contradictory sources I choose whatever I like best.

Other DMs can do what they please. It has no bearing on what I do, what I do has no bearing on what they do.

It's never happened.

Yes.

No, do not put words in my mouth. I am not the manager, I am the dictator. The only way the players can affect the world is through the actions of their characters.

I think the discussion is getting off track a bit but.... If I'm following the discussion right this might be the first time I've agreed with @Chaosmancer to such a significant degree. The responsibility for making a coherent world does not rest solely on he shoulders of the gm unless the GM is ignoring all official/example settings for the system & making something whole cloth from scratch. The publisher has a responsibility to ensure the base setting(s) they provide some reasonable level of cohesiveness & consistency rather than an endless march of isolated plot armor bolted all over a map simply because a failure to do so makes the job of the GM & players trying to operate within that world.

That world does not need to be modeled down to the finest detail; but if the setting is known for having a gigantic port city with massive political clout like waterdeep I should be able to point at the nation it exists in/rules over, the borders of that nation, & one or two other nations it trades with if said nation is not the sole power in some dystopian hellscape world. If a setting is known for particular race like orcs being powerful & frightening raiders that are a threat to all of civilization I should be able to point at a reason that doesn't involve plot armor like "because the gods" that explains why those raiders have not been wiped out by an alliance of the civilized world, walled out great wall style, or conquered the civilized world to unfurl a new dark age of collapsing civilization & "because the gods" is not it. If a setting is well known for having bonkers over the top magic items all over I should be able to point at a few ways it gets used for civilization that don't involve wandering mercenaries & mass murderers known as "adventurers" or there should be some explanation for why the price of magic is too awful for such things.

if it can't meet a bar like that the setting does the gm & players a disservice regardless of if they want coherent consistency because the gm who doesn't care about those things can continue to not care while ignoring them

 

[Scott Christian]

The responsibility for making a coherent world does not rest solely on he shoulders of the gm unless the GM is ignoring all official/example settings for the system & making something whole cloth from scratch.

And I would add to this. If they are making something from scratch, then they should probably be writing their own rules in order to help facilitate their vision of the world. (I always picture Dragonlance magic being very different from FR. But a more specific example, I picture the world of the Witcher needing its own ruleset, not D&D's.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The publisher has a responsibility to ensure the base setting(s) they provide some reasonable level of cohesiveness & consistency

When a setting has been around for 40 years and had dozens of different authors contributing to it it becomes impossible to maintain track of everything, let alone keep it consistent. And that's before lore that was created to justify one set of rules is invalidated by a different set of rules.

Did Mykul create the Wall? According to Chis Avellone in Masks of the Betrayer he did. Other sources might differ. WotC in 2020: "what Wall?"

It's the DM's job to decide what is and is not true in their world. The is not just one Forgotten Realms, there is one for every game set there, and every one is different.

 

[Remathilis]

Rules are limitations. That is what they are. Why have them if you are just going to keep shifting them to an easier setting? Especially in a game where any house rule can be implemented.

In 1978, race was separated from class officially and allowed demihumans to be classes other than fighters.

In 1989, more class options were added, and level limits increased.

In 2000, any race could be why class and level limits were abolished.

No official rule was ever needed for those things to happen. I know plenty of DMs who ignored level limits or allowed elf bards. And this did change the lore about races (humans were the dominant race due to unlimited advancement, dwarves are notoriously antimagical, gnomes use no magic but illusion). But outside some OSR scenes, I don't see a huge call for those restrictions to return or a return to race-as-class.

This too shall pass.

 

[tetrasodium]

When a setting has been around for 40 years and had dozens of different authors contributing to it it becomes impossible to maintain track of everything, let alone keep it consistent. And that's before lore that was created to justify one set of rules is invalidated by a different set of rules.

Did Mykul create the Wall? According to Chis Avellone in Masks of the Betrayer he did. Other sources might differ. WotC in 2020: "what Wall?"

It's the DM's job to decide what is and is not true in their world. The is not just one Forgotten Realms, there is one for every game set there, and every one is different.

None of that excuses wotc on this matter given how often they completely destroy and rebuild fr. The past is the past, the present cant be "all points in history simultaneously" because the two are different. Thst long history excuse highlights the problem because it was never anything but a modern heap of Tolkiens rotting flesh covered in plot armor & cultural stasis

 

[Scott Christian]

In 1978, race was separated from class officially and allowed demihumans to be classes other than fighters.

In 1989, more class options were added, and level limits increased.

In 2000, any race could be why class and level limits were abolished.

No official rule was ever needed for those things to happen. I know plenty of DMs who ignored level limits or allowed elf bards. And this did change the lore about races (humans were the dominant race due to unlimited advancement, dwarves are notoriously antimagical, gnomes use no magic but illusion). But outside some OSR scenes, I don't see a huge call for those restrictions to return or a return to race-as-class.

This too shall pass.

Oh, I am with you. It will not break the game. But in all of your examples, it was a new edition. That is the difference. I just think if your going to go down the road, go down the road, not try to straddle two roads at the same time.

 

[Remathilis]

Oh, I am with you. It will not break the game. But in all of your examples, it was a new edition. That is the difference. I just think if your going to go down the road, go down the road, not try to straddle two roads at the same time.

True, but then you have to look at Unearthed Arcana (1e), v3.5 and Essentials (4e) in the same light as the Tasha changes. There is a tradition of "mid-edition" changes as well.

 

[Alzrius]

True, but then you have to look at Unearthed Arcana (1e), v3.5 and Essentials (4e) in the same light as the Tasha changes. There is a tradition of "mid-edition" changes as well.

At the risk of sounding nit-picky, I don't think those are all equivalent to each other. A book of optional rules isn't the same as a "this is the new standard going forward" update.

 

[Micah Sweet]

At the risk of sounding nit-picky, I don't think those are all equivalent to each other. A book of optional rules isn't the same as a "this is the new standard going forward" update.

Unearthed Arcana was certainly a book of optional rules, but an arguement can be made that the Essentials line was "the new standard going forward" for 4E. I mean, it basically replaced the game. I don't think Tasha's rises to that level by any means, but it certainly modifies some assumptions. Whether or not those modifications work for any given person is the question at hand.

 

[Alzrius]

an arguement can be made that the Essentials line was "the new standard going forward" for 4E. I mean, it basically replaced the game.

Essentials is a hard one to parse. I'll quote D&D historian Shannon Appelcline from the DriveThruRPG sales pages for the following products:

From Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set (4e):

What a Difference an Edition Makes: The Confusion. Even following preview articles from Slavicsek and Mearls, players didn't know what the Essentials product line was really intended to be. More importantly, retailers didn't know what it was.

The biggest concern for players was whether Essentials was a de facto 4.5e, by which they meant an incompatible version of the rules. Meanwhile, retailers worried about whether Essentials made the old core books obsolete … and whether they'd remain in print at all. Some of these issues would explode into flame wars on the internet in late 2010 and early 2011 … even as the concerns were largely proven incorrect.

From Player Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands:

What a Difference an Edition Makes: The Controversy. When Essentials was first announced, there was a lot of concern and confusion because people didn't understand what the line was, or what it meant for the existing 4e line. Mike Mearls did his best to assure players of the compatibility of Essentials in articles and interviews leading up to the release of the new product line, but the controversy never died down.

Then on September 14, halfway between the release of Starter Set and Heroes of the Fallen Lands, Mearls gave an interview with the Escapist where he said:

"If you are a disgruntled D&D fan, there's nothing I can say to you that undoes whatever happened two years ago or a year ago that made you disgruntled - but what I can do, what's within my power, is that going forward, I can make products, I can design game material, I can listen to what you're saying, and I can do what I can do with design to make you happy again; to get back to that core of what makes D&D, D&D; to what made people fall in love with it the first time, whether it was the Red Box in '83, the original three booklets back in '74 or '75 or even 3rd Edition in 2004, whenever that happened, to get back to what drew you into D&D in the first place and give that back to you."

It implied that even if Essentials was maintaining compatibility with D&D 4e, it might be reversing some of the philosophy of the game, as Mike Mearls took over from Rob Heinsoo as the head of D&D development.

And that's exactly what happened, as the new class designs of Heroes of the Fallen Lands revealed new philosophies for character design. And, the result was controversial; as with any design revamp, some of the current players felt like the game they loved was being sidelined!

What a Difference an Edition Makes: The Compatibility. When Mearls began working on Essentials, one of his main priorities was keeping it totally compatible with previous 4e books. With the release of Heroes of the Fallen Lands, players could now see that changes were indeed pretty minimal, involving: errata; updated Feat and Magic Item systems; and updated philosophies for building characters. Of these, the difference between the character builds was the largest, and had the most possibility to be incompatible.

But the designers felt they weren't

Mearls paraphrased designer Rich Baker when he said, "the choice between a traditional build and an Essentials build would basically reflect different play styles". Baker expanded on this, saying "It’s perfectly ok if, at the same table, Joe is playing a Fighter straight out of the Players Handbook, with all of the power selections that he would ordinarily have had, and Dave, sitting next to him, is playing a Slayer, out of Essentials. Those Characters, essentially, are built the same, and are transparent to each other".

But that's not at all how the D&D roleplaying community treated the new rules. Between late 2010 and early 2011, 4e players seemed to fracture into "traditional" gamers and "Essentials" gamers. At first there were edition wars over whether Essentials had replaced the core rules, then for the next year each new D&D book was scrutinized for whether it was Essentials or traditional.

So, there's no mechanical reason not to use core and Essentials products together, but you could similarly have said that 3e books could be used with D&D 3.5e (2003) with almost no problem. In both cases, the roleplaying community disagreed.

EDIT: Also, from Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow:

The Essentials Facts. The most vitriolic argument preceding the release of Heroes of Shadows was whether it was an Essentials book or not. Older 4e fans hoped for a return to the "core", while newer fans didn't want to see Essentials abandoned after just 10 releases. This question touched all of Wizards' 2011 D&D releases, but it was especially important to Heroes of Shadow, which was the first post-Essentials D&D release and which had been the topic of very mixed messages.

Even after Heroes of Shadows' release, reviewers couldn't decide the answer to the question, which shows how muddled its marketing message was. The book itself is clear in saying that it's for players who joined the game through the Essentials rulebooks like the Rules Compendium (2010) or the two earlier Heroes books. Heroes of Shadows' classes are also built like the Essentials characters. However, the new races and the rules for incorporating shadow magic into other classes were all be usable by any 4e player. Finally, Heroes of Shadow doesn't carry an Essentials logo, for what that was worth.

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