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

[Chaosmancer]

I'd be hard pressed to find a a group of players that is not influenced by me or one of the other DMs at the store in my area. When you learn with a system, you prefer to keep it that way with minor changes. These rules seems minor for many, but they deeply change the traditional way we see races. The playing against type will no longer mean anything and thus, as a DM I would no longer be "bound" to play the surprise factor for a dwarven wizard in armor or the halfling barb or whatever else comes to mind. IF I were to apply these rules, that is.

1) We can still play against "type" if all you mean is using an unusual combination. Yes, maybe one day all races will be equally likely for all classes. And in that "horrible" future people may be free to play anything they want and people will no longer think your dwarven bard or High Elf Barbarian is special just for existing.

2) I have no idea what you meant by "bound" but I was never bound to play a "surprise" factor for anything. A Halfling in leather armor with a battleaxe on his back would be treated as being a dangerous warrior just as much as one in leather armor with a crossbow on his back. Whether they were a barbarian or a rogue shouldn't really make much a difference to that.

And, as I have said before, at least on the player end, all you have to do is describe a character as wielding a staff, and everyone assumes spellcaster anyways. And I see no reason to play my smarter enemies dumber than my players. So, a dwarf with a staff and no shield? Being a spellcaster is likely.

3) Changing the traditional way we see races is not a bad thing. Races have been in their ruts for nearly 50 years with little movement. Meanwhile, other games have moved on and changed things up a little, positing new takes on the old ideas. I'm glad DnD is changing things up.

 

[Helldritch]

1) We can still play against "type" if all you mean is using an unusual combination. Yes, maybe one day all races will be equally likely for all classes. And in that "horrible" future people may be free to play anything they want and people will no longer think your dwarven bard or High Elf Barbarian is special just for existing.

2) I have no idea what you meant by "bound" but I was never bound to play a "surprise" factor for anything. A Halfling in leather armor with a battleaxe on his back would be treated as being a dangerous warrior just as much as one in leather armor with a crossbow on his back. Whether they were a barbarian or a rogue shouldn't really make much a difference to that.

And, as I have said before, at least on the player end, all you have to do is describe a character as wielding a staff, and everyone assumes spellcaster anyways. And I see no reason to play my smarter enemies dumber than my players. So, a dwarf with a staff and no shield? Being a spellcaster is likely.

3) Changing the traditional way we see races is not a bad thing. Races have been in their ruts for nearly 50 years with little movement. Meanwhile, other games have moved on and changed things up a little, positing new takes on the old ideas. I'm glad DnD is changing things up.

1) No we won't. When everyone is good at everything, you can not play against type as their is no expectations.
2) By "bound" I mean that when there is an unusual class/race combination, I will play the foes/npcs with the expectations that the character is something else. Ex, a dwarf in armor is a fighter or cleric, not a wizard. So the foes will not jump to the conclusion that the dwarf is a wizard. It will take some times. Time that a good player will put to good use.

3) Many of the games that made those change are now lost to history and vanished from memories. A few are still there but they were/are far less successful than D&D. Classic tropes are still appreciated by a lot of people, whether you like it or not. Tradition is not a bad thing and the races have met the expectations of players of all walks of life for 50 years now. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good thing. If ever...

 

[Don Durito]

The more I think about it, the more potential I think there is in just making ability score bonus class based.

It would be a way to actually end the illusion that all classes are equal in their ability score needs.

I'd probably go Fighers +2 Str, Dex and Con, and Wizards +3 Int or something like that.

 

[M_Natas]

1) No we won't. When everyone is good at everything, you can not play against type as their is no expectations.

That is a very meta way at looking at that. Playing against type for you seems to be measured in "what players in general usally do and what thy don't do because of some rules". It is not on the level of game or table, but you want to play something, because other tables, other players around the whole world don't play that thing, because it is suboptimal because of the current rules. At least that's how I understand this statement.

For me that is really strange, because for me it really doesn't matter, what other players in other tables do and I don't have any need to differentiate me from them by playing something they normally don't do.
What counts is what is on my table. I don't play AL (because that doesn't exist in Germany), I only have my two tables where I play. On one I DM. And as the DM I build some NPCs aginst Type, like a halfling barbarian that beat the crap out of the Dragonborn Monk in my campaign in an arena fight ^^, but I didn't build it because it was against type compared to other tables, but because the thought of a halfling barbarian was funny (and it would be in general in most fantasy worlds not matter the rules). And as the DM I could give the halfling the stats it needed to be an effective barbarian.
At the same time, as a player, 50% of the time I have to play variant human, because my character concepts only rellay work nice if I get that special feat (like my celestial Warlock who needs magic initiate (bard) to pretend, he is a bard or my life cleric with tavern brawler feat to show she had a tuff upbringing). Now with Tasha I finally can use other races or create my own lineage to do so without defaulting to variant human.

 

[Helldritch]

You kinda proved my point without saying it.
With Tasha, no more going against the current or the optimal choices. Everything is optimal. Always.

 

[Oofta]

That is a very meta way at looking at that. Playing against type for you seems to be measured in "what players in general usally do and what thy don't do because of some rules". It is not on the level of game or table, but you want to play something, because other tables, other players around the whole world don't play that thing, because it is suboptimal because of the current rules. At least that's how I understand this statement.

For me that is really strange, because for me it really doesn't matter, what other players in other tables do and I don't have any need to differentiate me from them by playing something they normally don't do.
What counts is what is on my table. I don't play AL (because that doesn't exist in Germany), I only have my two tables where I play. On one I DM. And as the DM I build some NPCs aginst Type, like a halfling barbarian that beat the crap out of the Dragonborn Monk in my campaign in an arena fight ^^, but I didn't build it because it was against type compared to other tables, but because the thought of a halfling barbarian was funny (and it would be in general in most fantasy worlds not matter the rules). And as the DM I could give the halfling the stats it needed to be an effective barbarian.
At the same time, as a player, 50% of the time I have to play variant human, because my character concepts only rellay work nice if I get that special feat (like my celestial Warlock who needs magic initiate (bard) to pretend, he is a bard or my life cleric with tavern brawler feat to show she had a tuff upbringing). Now with Tasha I finally can use other races or create my own lineage to do so without defaulting to variant human.

I don't care if my PC has a 16 in their primary ability score and never have. Other people do and that's fine, it's their PC. But there are times that I want to play a PC with a perceived deficit such as a dwarven wizard or half-orc monk. Sometimes I like to play against type. You don't and that's fine. It's not your PC.

Before Tasha's, it's always been possible to play any class with with a 16 in their primary ability. After Tasha's there will be more options, but there will be no options to play against type. So people that care about that 16 "win" while those that want to play against type "lose".* It also takes away one more choice that requires an ever-so-slight compromise in theoretical optimization.

Ultimately I think the end result will be a lot more elf barbarians and a tiny increase in dwarven wizards. For a short period of time they may even feel like your playing against type. In the long run it will just be par for the course as race becomes ever less important and it's only lore and cultural differences that most people ignore that distinguishes between them.

*Win and lose are in parenthesis because although I see this as an issue, it's not the end of the world and it's fate accompli in any case. I just want to preempt claims that I'm saying it's the end of D&D as we know it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You kinda proved my point without saying it.
With Tasha, no more going against the current or the optimal choices. Everything is optimal. Always.

Not true. Now you can go against the type by playing an elf wizard instead of the optimal mountain dwarf wizard!

 

[Scott Christian]

How are you defining optimal and sub-optimal here please? There are optimised builds that don't rely on racial ASIs, but rather other racial traits.

I defined it like this:
"Those that have more players that optimize or min/max do so because they pair race/class combos. The min/maxers pair race/class/background/feat. The sub-optimal players don't pair anything. In fact, they choose to not pair the better race with class. Instead, they may be leaning heavily on a specific story they conjured. Or they are thinking of a specific hyper-focused skill."
If you are looking for specific attribute bonuses for min/maxers, I see the beginning 17 and a 15 or 16 in their secondary attribute (that is the highest you can have with point buy) combined with specific a synergistic (god I hate that word, but it fits here) meld of class, race and background abilities.
The specific attribute bonus for optimized would be 15 or 16 in their primary attribute and 14 or 15 in their secondary attribute. This would allow another attribute to be decent as well. The racial and background skills might match the class's needs.
And obviously for the sub-optimal we see a 14 as the primary attribute and maybe a 12-14 in the secondary. Other attributes are solid. The racial and background abilities do not match the class's needs.

 

[Scott Christian]

I am not quite sure what you mean by this. If the rule is optional and not in the PHB then unless one is aware of the new rule or bought the supplement then one can continue as if this new rule does not exist. In fact one could be completely unaware of it. Even if one is aware of the new rules but do not use then how has the new rules impacted ones game?

Optional rules, whether we believe it or not, are used by many. I have played on a lot of different tables in a lot of different states; cons, home groups, etc. Almost always, optional rules are used the day after they come out - this is especially true for anything character creation related. It is neither a good nor bad thing. But, to dismiss it and say people are ignorant of the new race or class or spell is being a little bit disrespectful of the people who play D&D. They all know how to look things up on their phone. And once one person in a group uses the new combo, class, etc. - they all learn it.
Maybe I just believe information in our community disseminates faster. I could be wrong. I am open to that possibility.

These are all personal preferences, why should I abide by your choices? You can still play AD&D (or even Everquest), so can I but I choose not to.

Hi ardoughter. Please note, I never used the word "I" in my sentences describing those changes. In fact, I went out of my way to say most people (if you must know, including me) likes almost all of those changes. They didn't make the game better. They didn't make it worse. They made it different.
But those changes also changed the lore. And that is something that ruffles feathers in some people. And you know what? They have as much of a claim to be ruffled as someone has a claim to think they are great.
What should be clear is I did not say those were my preferences. (And sorry about the water analogy. Sometimes they are spot on, and sometimes they just obfuscate what I was trying to say.)

Again I am not sure what the point is here. I will make an observation.
Us, as players and DMs can get off the bus anytime we like. If there are edition, rule supplements, even specific elements within books we otherwise choose to use. We set what we play and the extent of it. Mike Mearls, or Jeremy Crawford are not gong to force us to buy new supplements or implement new rules or even accept errata to existing rules.

However, expecting a company like WoTC to stop producing rule supplements that add new elements and rules is like expecting the sun to stop rising, the tides to stops flowing. They are in the business of producing rules supplements among other things. They sell, and as long as they sell they will continue to produce them. We can influence the process somewhat here, by anticipating some elements and how they may be best changes. By playtesting and responding to the surveys. New stuff will come and we can be thankful that in the current edition the pace is relatively slow.
I have managed in 5e, for the first time ever to get an AP to completion with only one major overhaul (Xanathers, i do not count the others as major) and now there is another. Previously complete editions passed by in the same time frame.

You are correct, we should not expect WotC to stop publishing those materials. I am happy you got through an AP. They can be fun. And for the record, I am on the 5e bus. Ask anyone who has seen me defend AP's, and they'll probably roll their eyes and throw a die at me. But it should not stop anyone from looking critically at a ruleset and debating how it might alter the game, in the present and future.

 

[Scott Christian]

But tougher than a group of humans used to the same?

We have to keep in mind that a +2 is meant, mechanically, to be "better than human". And I don't think the Dwarves in the Hobbit show any more endurance or toughness than a similarly weathered group of humans.

This is a great point. And from a logic perspective, I say you are correct. From a Tolkien perspective, I don't know. But, D&D is not Tolkien, so you are correct. 100% correct.