D&D (2024) No Appendix N Equivalent?

[Voadam]

I learned a lot of cool ways to have Law and Chaos in a game I generally don’t think I would have thought of on my own from just the game but that went into my 3e/pathfinder house rules of alignment as Cosmic Forces and not morality judgments that I used in my campaigns for years until 5e changed the mechanical impact of alignment in my games.

And even from the defenders of appendix, I have not read a single comment in this thread "yeah, I took inspiration from Appendix N. I had no idea for my own, read some stuff and it inspired my campaign". Everyone is like "its interesting, I got some nice books out of it - never used it in my campaign though".

I don't think you read all the comments then.

 

[Scribe]

I think the sharp divides just in this thread demonstrate WotC was wise in this particular exclusion.

And how sad is that as a bellweather for our society?

 

[Maxperson]

Curating = gatekeeping.

Curating/gatekeeping doesn't equate to bad, though. Especially in something like an appendix n. Just put a disclaimer about it being a partial list and you're good to go.

 

[Maxperson]

And it is still at best useless, and at worst divisive.

The emphasis of the new DMG is all on "make it your own", not on trying to reproduce what the designers do.

All the inspiration you need to play D&D is whatever YOU like.

If you want a list of books to read, you can find them all over the internet, they don't need to be wasting pages in the DMG.

There's nothing wrong with listing some potential inspirations. Inspiration doesn't equate to copying. It's being inspired to make something your own with elements of other things that inspire you. Those are not mutually exclusive things.

 

[Maxperson]

this.
My appendix N may not be your appendix N.

It literally doesn't matter whose appendix n it is. I've looked at the appendix Ns over the years. I've read some of those books and not others. I've thought books that I've read that weren't on it were good enough to be, and others that were on it weren't in my opinion good enough. I've taken inspiration from some on the list and not others, and inspiration from books off the list.

At no point did the list ever limit me in any way, shape or form. It's there to provide different avenues of inspiration to DMs and players alike. Use or to don't, but it's not bad to have.

 

[Immeril]

You go into a library and pull a book off the shelf, or turn on the TV, or go to the cinema. You must think new players are really really dumb if you think they need to be shown how to do that!

Since you stated in a previous post that D&D players take everything literal, your opinion of (new) players is just as low as that of @EzekielRaiden (as you claim).

 

[Parmandur]

Since you stated in a previous post that D&D players take everything literal, your opinion of (new) players is just as low as that of @EzekielRaiden (as you claim).

Hardly: new readers know how to Google reading suggestions. Thst wasn't an option in 1979.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Since you stated in a previous post that D&D players take everything literal, your opinion of (new) players is just as low as that of @EzekielRaiden (as you claim).

Nah, I was thinking of the older players.

People tend to get less flexible and more dogmatic as they get older.

 

[Immeril]

Nah, I was thinking of the older players.

People tend to get less flexible and more dogmatic as they get older.

Well, I can’t say that I have any experience with older, multi-edition players since me and my table have only been playing RPGs since 2018.
Still, even though we understood that we can take inspiration from virtually anything. While I haven’t used anything from those books in my games, it is more because we spend way too much time playing through the WotC modules

 

[KYRON45]

Wouldn't the only real point of having an Appendix N in the new books be just to check to see if a book that hasn't been relevant for the past 30 years was cut and then complaining?

If i have learned anything about the internet it's that any list anywhere should just be titled: Things People Will End Up Complaining About.