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<blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 1818185" data-attributes="member: 707">&quot;By their nature&quot;?&nbsp; The rule that you're concerned with, the restriction on the vampire template, doesn't &quot;by its nature&quot; say that you can't change it either.&nbsp; It describes the vampire template as applying to humanoids and monstrous humanoids, just as Demons are Chaotic-Evil Outsiders and Animate Dead is an [Evil] spell.&nbsp; They all serve to reinforce cultural atmosphere, and are all equally mutable in the hands of the DM.&nbsp; My point was that flavor is and always has been a part of the core rules mechanics.&nbsp; You asked &quot;why do the vampire template rules include flavor?&quot; to which I am responding, &quot;because there is a certain 'core flavor' that is supported by the mechanical aspects of the game.&quot;You're giving me my point back to me.&nbsp; That's what I'm saying: flavor and mechanics are intertwined in the core game.&nbsp; The vampire rules are written to compliment the core vampire flavor, that of an undead humanoid or monstrous humanoid, just as the core werewolf rules (the always Evil alignment) are written to compliment the nature of werewolves in most Western mythologies.It seems you would prefer the D&amp;D rules to be a completely plain slate, devoid of any flavor of its own, which you can use to create whatever flavor you desire.&nbsp; I can understand this, but I don't think the game will ever cater to you in this way.&nbsp; Many DMs are time-constrained, or simply don't want to make the tremendous effort it would take to define every flavor aspect of their games.&nbsp; They want to use creatures &quot;out of the box&quot; and have those creatures be flavorful and interesting.&nbsp; The core rules allow those DMs to do so, by offering rules which reflect and reinforce a &quot;standard flavor&quot; that requires no tinkering to use.&nbsp; DMs who want to recreate worlds outside of the standard flavor are still very able to do so upon their own initiative.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lord Pendragon, post: 1818185, member: 707"] "By their nature"? The rule that you're concerned with, the restriction on the vampire template, doesn't "by its nature" say that you can't change it either. It describes the vampire template as applying to humanoids and monstrous humanoids, just as Demons are Chaotic-Evil Outsiders and [i]Animate Dead[/i] is an [Evil] spell. They all serve to reinforce cultural atmosphere, and are all equally mutable in the hands of the DM. My point was that flavor is and always has been a part of the core rules mechanics. You asked "why do the vampire template rules include flavor?" to which I am responding, "because there is a certain 'core flavor' that is supported by the mechanical aspects of the game."You're giving me my point back to me. That's what I'm saying: flavor and mechanics are intertwined in the core game. The vampire rules are written to compliment the core vampire flavor, that of an undead humanoid or monstrous humanoid, just as the core werewolf rules (the always Evil alignment) are written to compliment the nature of werewolves in most Western mythologies.It seems you would prefer the D&D rules to be a completely plain slate, devoid of any flavor of its own, which you can use to create whatever flavor you desire. I can understand this, but I don't think the game will ever cater to you in this way. Many DMs are time-constrained, or simply don't want to make the tremendous effort it would take to define every flavor aspect of their games. They want to use creatures "out of the box" and have those creatures be flavorful and interesting. The core rules allow those DMs to do so, by offering rules which reflect and reinforce a "standard flavor" that requires no tinkering to use. DMs who want to recreate worlds outside of the standard flavor are still very able to do so upon their own initiative. [/QUOTE]

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