My mind can always be changed by anyone with an argument that makes any sense. However, I don't expect my challenging their argument will change their mind, but it might have them explain their case in such a way as to change mine.
Absolutely not a bit, I post to refine my own thoughts. Changing myself is possible, changing others is a Fools errand.
It's not hard to say.
I'm generally not posting to convince the poster I'm responding to, but I like to imagine a well-presented argument might have an impact on people who are just lurking and reading.
Notably in OneD&D, the percentage of green would be higher than blue.
Always was. That's why BD&D just cut it successfully.
Not to mention with floating ASI’s one of the main impacts of picking a species might have is gone, i know it’s convenient but is it meaningful?
Sure, it's meaningful: RCe abilities are often flavorful and come up frequently. Still way less of an impact on play than Class, but not without some meaning.
You misunderstand i think, I meant are floating ASI meaningful, not species themselves, personally I’d love if species had more significance than what they currently do.
Hello. I dislike backgrounds. At least as presented in 5E. It bugs me that ribbon abilities range from multiverse-wide peasant mind control to a free meal. It bugs me that most players use backgrounds as an excuse to pick up a skill they think is vital or a bit of kit they'll just sell later. I'm glad the ribbon abilities have been nuked from orbit. I like the build-your-own as default approach. It prevents all the needless arguments and justifications for swapping skills that make zero sense for a background.
In 5E, the floating ASI and Race abilities have equal significance: the Racial abilities are usually worth an ASI and a half, except for Half-Elf and Dwarf being worth an ASI and standard Human just being 3 ASIs.
While I don’t deny floating is good for getting that +3 where you want it but I’m more of the opinion that ASI should be saying something about the species they’re on, halflings are nimble, halflings are wise, halflings are personable, +DEX, +WIS, +CHA, even just letting players assign their +3 between those any way they like, if you want to be ‘the strongest halfling this side of the horizon’ then that’s what you determine with your assigning of stat rolls/array/point buy.
That's flavor, I'm just talking the game mechanics math: a ability bonus is just an ability bonus as far as the game is concerned, which one gets boosted doesn't matter.
Both 2e and 3e D&D had books that covered the races in greater detail. For instance, 2e had books such as the Complete Book of Elves which talked about the history and culture of elves while also providing elf-specific kits for the various D&D classes. 3e had Races of the Wild , which did the same as the Complete Books of Elves in addition providing racial substitution levels, elven feats, elven weapons, and elven magic.
I don’t think I can change the minds of the peopole I’m arguing with. I do think the conversion may be of value to third parties who may be reading it, and if I represent my position well, it might influence such readers more towards my position.
If backgrounds are removed from character creation in the 2024 PHB, as you suggest, how will a player establish any "non-professional" or "secondary" knowledge of mundane matters outside of a PC's class, picked up through incidental learning or training in early life? Both editions of (Advanced) D&D with which I'm familiar, 1E and 5E, have a method for doing so.
no class skills, no limit what tools/languages can be taken. no limit on 1st level feat that can be taken.
I feel like, without the unifying theme of a background, this assortment of free choices will tend towards oatmeal, especially the choice of feat. The published feats aren't very flavorful as representations of a character's life experience and are a poor substitute for background features, IMO.
