Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
New Survey Results | Druid & Paladin | Unearthed Arcana | D&D
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9023704" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Well, this is going to end up being just a difference of opinion on what each player's belief of what their imagination in the world could/should be.</p><p></p><p>From your and your players perspective... an animal isn't "real" unless you use an actual statblock that has the name of the animal written at the top. Which is cool. That's your feelings and there's nothing wrong about them. Perfectly valid way to play. But for other people, they are perfectly okay writing in the name of the animal at the top of the stablock themselves rather than having WotC do it.</p><p></p><p>I happen to fall into the latter group... because I acknowledge that pretty much all animal statblocks (and quite frankly a lot of monster statblocks too) are all basically the same, with the only difference being one animal's attack bonus being like a +3 while another's is +4. 6 ability scores all around the same 8-13 grouping, a melee mouth attack and a melee hand attack, bth of which do a die of damage plus a couple points. There's really no distinctive differences except for perhaps if it happens to have a special ability. So for those people... any differentiation of them comes from the imaginations of the DM and the mind's eye of the players as they have to visualize X animal in front of them, rather than Y animal.</p><p></p><p>I mean, if you can remove the names of the animals from the tops of their statblocks and when shown to various people they wouldn't even begin to identify which blocks go to which animals because they are all kind of the same... it shows us that specific animal statblocks are not necessary for many people's ability to play into the fantasy. Wildshaping into a wolf becomes a thing because the player and the table visualize and imagine the player's character AS a wolf as they describe what their druid is doing, rather than because they have the wolf statblock in front of them. For a lot of people, they don't even NEED a statblock at all to be able to roleplay as a wolf, they just do it.</p><p></p><p>Now one way isn't inherently better than the other. It's all going to come down to preferences. But for the designers, they are going to have to just do some counting of heads to see which preferences are more dominant-- especially when coupled with attitudes regarding ease-of-use, balance, and speed. Which means one of the sides will end up disappointed.</p><p></p><p>But at least for the fans of the 2014 wildshape, they can easily port those rules into their 2024 game if they end up wanting to and it ultimately becomes necessary should the template format go forward. There's no reason not to.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9023704, member: 7006"] Well, this is going to end up being just a difference of opinion on what each player's belief of what their imagination in the world could/should be. From your and your players perspective... an animal isn't "real" unless you use an actual statblock that has the name of the animal written at the top. Which is cool. That's your feelings and there's nothing wrong about them. Perfectly valid way to play. But for other people, they are perfectly okay writing in the name of the animal at the top of the stablock themselves rather than having WotC do it. I happen to fall into the latter group... because I acknowledge that pretty much all animal statblocks (and quite frankly a lot of monster statblocks too) are all basically the same, with the only difference being one animal's attack bonus being like a +3 while another's is +4. 6 ability scores all around the same 8-13 grouping, a melee mouth attack and a melee hand attack, bth of which do a die of damage plus a couple points. There's really no distinctive differences except for perhaps if it happens to have a special ability. So for those people... any differentiation of them comes from the imaginations of the DM and the mind's eye of the players as they have to visualize X animal in front of them, rather than Y animal. I mean, if you can remove the names of the animals from the tops of their statblocks and when shown to various people they wouldn't even begin to identify which blocks go to which animals because they are all kind of the same... it shows us that specific animal statblocks are not necessary for many people's ability to play into the fantasy. Wildshaping into a wolf becomes a thing because the player and the table visualize and imagine the player's character AS a wolf as they describe what their druid is doing, rather than because they have the wolf statblock in front of them. For a lot of people, they don't even NEED a statblock at all to be able to roleplay as a wolf, they just do it. Now one way isn't inherently better than the other. It's all going to come down to preferences. But for the designers, they are going to have to just do some counting of heads to see which preferences are more dominant-- especially when coupled with attitudes regarding ease-of-use, balance, and speed. Which means one of the sides will end up disappointed. But at least for the fans of the 2014 wildshape, they can easily port those rules into their 2024 game if they end up wanting to and it ultimately becomes necessary should the template format go forward. There's no reason not to. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
New Survey Results | Druid & Paladin | Unearthed Arcana | D&D
Top