My Homebrew ISN'T core (and neither is yours)

[Caster]

Chew on this - How I choose to run D&D games of any edition at my table is my right as DM. Period. Guess what? Same applies to your table also.

Chipmunk PC's who are Beggar Class and fight crime in the flying city of Here-Not-There? We don't roll dice because we don't like the randomization and hate leaving things to chance? Paladins are ALWAYS Lawful Good. PC's live in a Cosmology where all beings are just chess pieces in a grand game played between the Fates and the Gods.

How does this concern D&DN? It's my reaction to all the "DNDN MUST be my way or it's the highway" responses each new nugget of information about the system seems to engender.

Basically, grow up. D&D has always OFFICIALLY best supported a certain particular type of play style. But really, outside of Convention or Tournament play who plays exactly 100% by the RAW every moment of every session of every campaign? Computers, that's who.

Painting Guru Bob Ross says that when you buy your first tube of paint you get an artists licence that goes along with it that says you can put any world or vision on the canvas that you can imagine. Same goes for the D&D rulebooks also, I think.

Core isn't a bible (although many treat is as such.) Core IS a baseline, that's all. Core is a starting point, not the finish line. Should core be complete (to a point)? Yes. Should it work and have internal consistency? Again, yes. Should it be tailor written to apply to as small or niche-y an audience as possible? No. Should my assumptions about the game be the only ones taken into account in the creation of the core? No.

So as long as Core is cobbled together reasonably well, is fun to play, and allows (nay, ENCOURAGES) me that my milage may vary I'll have no problem with it. I'll modify it at my table as I see fit. And I hope all of you will too.

Core is Common Tongue. You may be an Elf, Giant, Gnome, Human, or even a sentient Bear and talk amongst yourselves in your own languages. But to get along in the world at large, you're going to need to speak at least a little Common Tongue. And seemingly translators are in short supply.

Dave

 

[Serendipity]

Is this really in dispute? Make no mistake, I pretty much 110% agree with what you have to say here, but I literally have difficulty imagining people not holding this to be pretty much true.
(Of course, people never fail to surprise, and I haven't had my coffee yet, so the imagination might be still hiding out in dreamland, unwilling to disappoint me so.)

 

[Dausuul]

I agree, with the caveat that there is a difference between adjusting the rules to better suit the game I want to run and adjusting the rules to compensate for the rules being broken. D&DN should be playable out of the box, as written, and if so played it should deliver the kind of game it claims to deliver (whatever that may be). My house rules should be customizations, not fixes.

 

[Ramaster]

Practically in EVERY RPG rulebook I have ever read, this is stated on AT LEAST on the first few pages (something along the lines of: "This rules are nothing more than guidelines, feel free to modify them and play the game as you like/enjoy/see fit!!!").

And yet time and time again we see people complaining about the most trivial things. "Dragonborns are NOT D&D!!1! I don't like the Roles model of 4e!!1! 3e Is a chaos of disconnected options and unbalancing builds!!1!". And I'm, like "seriously?". If no-one in your playgroup likes the dragonborn, then why complain about it? Do you just want to ruin other's chance to play with the race? Just ignore it and move on! Same with Roles, unbalanced builds, weight rules, etc. Someone who plays and unbalaced build is someone who doesn't want you to have fun.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Painting Guru Bob Ross says that when you buy your first tube of paint you get an artists licence that goes along with it that says you can put any world or vision on the canvas that you can imagine. Same goes for the D&D rulebooks also, I think.

I collaborate with four or five other painters, and I work exclusively within the impressionist school, so I buy special paint that can only be used for impressionism. It's a handy communication tool.

 

[delericho]

How does this concern D&DN? It's my reaction to all the "DNDN MUST be my way or it's the highway" responses each new nugget of information about the system seems to engender.

The thing is, if WotC want my money, then it's not enough for them to produce a good game, or even a great D&D. What they need to create is a game that is a better fit for me than either my current edition of choice (3.5e) and whatever I can put together myself, and it needs to be "better enough" to compel me to switch, despite the cost and hassle of doing so.

(That "better enough" test is why I don't play Pathfinder, FWIW.)

That's a pretty tall order. What's more, it's not enough for WotC to convince me to switch. What they need to do is convince a very large number of people that their new D&D is "better enough" than what they currently have, or 5e fails.

Now, there are some things that, if WotC choose to do them, it all-but-guarantees that I won't be interested in 5e. If, for example, they produce another 1,000 page monstrosity of core rules (okay, okay, 960 and 832 pages), with the assumption that we'll buy into another 1,000+ pages of supplements to make the game 'complete', then there's virtually no chance I'll be interested - such a game just won't be able to pass the "better enough" test.

Other people, not unsurprisingly, each have their own set of preferences and deal-breakers. Of these, some are actually serious issues, while others are simply hyperbole. But what I don't get is why people shouldn't express their preferences?

Basically, grow up.

Uh-huh. Well, thanks - you've certainly convinced me!

 

[howandwhy99]

I collaborate with four or five other painters, and I work exclusively within the impressionist school, so I buy special paint that can only be used for impressionism. It's a handy communication tool.

I think he's saying "open your mind", we don't need to march and shout carrying signs everywhere. Sometimes our group plays collaboratively, sometimes competitively, sometimes cooperatively. Sometimes we all just play near each other. I like multiple play style support, so advocating for one or more is fine. Advocating against others isn't.

 

[CleverNickName]

I agree, with the caveat that there is a difference between adjusting the rules to better suit the game I want to run and adjusting the rules to compensate for the rules being broken. D&DN should be playable out of the box, as written, and if so played it should deliver the kind of game it claims to deliver (whatever that may be). My house rules should be customizations, not fixes.

Sorry, but I can't give you any more experience yet. Can somebody cover me here?

The OP has a point, but I think he might have stretched it too thin. By this logic, all we really need to play the game is the SRD and the time to modify it. And that's not what we do at my table.

 

[dkyle]

And yet time and time again we see people complaining about the most trivial things. "Dragonborns are NOT D&D!!1! I don't like the Roles model of 4e!!1! 3e Is a chaos of disconnected options and unbalancing builds!!1!". And I'm, like "seriously?". If no-one in your playgroup likes the dragonborn, then why complain about it? Do you just want to ruin other's chance to play with the race? Just ignore it and move on! Same with Roles, unbalanced builds, weight rules, etc. Someone who plays and unbalaced build is someone who doesn't want you to have fun.

There's a huge difference between banning a specific race at a table, and trying to balance a system. Taking out options for fluff reasons is trivial. in contrast, identifying and fixing balance problems is the hardest part of game design.

And "fixing" roles isn't easy, either. I have no problem with them, but for those that do, the problem is more than just the labels (which can, of course, be trivially ignored). Modifying 4E to actually remove the obvious role-based mechanics, and end up with a coherent game, would be a tremendous undertaking. Practically a whole new RPG.

 

[Gold Roger]

That we deviate from the Core doesn't mean we can't discuss our preferences and how we want that Core to look.

If the Core doesn't facilate deviation, if the Core is to far removed from my preferences that it's more effort than worth to deviate, that is bad.

I've seen a few things in the columns and older editions that make it harder to homebrew. This is something dear to me, so i voice my concern.

I can understand being sick of the "my way or the highway" attitude. But saying "we can all just change the game anyway" isn't very good for discussion either.

D&D isn't a game played by individuals who can set every little detail to personal preference.

It's game played by groups and I'd say very few of these groups are 100% homogenic. And I sure as hell don't believe I'm the only person that plays with groups that are very heterogenous and in fact likes playing with such a diverse set of prefernces.

Yes, every group, over time, creates their own game of D&D, but we still need a game that is an excellent starting point for as many different groups and players as possible.

Core is the common ground for everyone when starting a game and discussing play. This edition is publicly created and for that to work, I think we need input from as many people as possible.

Saying "if you don't like it, change it in your home game" won't work with a public playtest comming up.