D&D (2024) One D&D is one D&D too much (-)

[Mecheon]

Well, I don't care for the new "furries" celestial race. Why couldn't they just do to the Asimar what they did to the Tiefling? Is the furry market really that influential? But, I've never been a fan of the race of the month club that seems to have become more prevalent in recent years.

I can understand why they want back to the drawing board, given 'A compelling opposite to the tiefling' has been a thing they've been working on for 26 years. Aasimar were a slot filler at best who never really did anything with it, Deva ended up being anti-Rakshasa, and the newer version of Aasimar didn't really give them a unique visual identity. "Animal headed angels" -is- an identity, and its not like Aasimar ever leaned into the "I guess a Guardinal could be your parent" side of things. Drawing from that side and the obvious Egyptian side of things also is a visual design.

Plus there's a very good theory that Ardlings aren't supposed to be the new Aasimar. They're supposed to be the Generic Anthro Race, holding all of your bear people, your wolf people, and so on. The problem of course is I reckon folks are going to want stuff more specific to those animals to fill that niche properly. You don't want angel wings, you want bear-like toughness, or the enhanced senses of a wolf, or just, a ridonculous bite

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Also, nothing I said has anything to do with how I play D&D currently, just FYI.

I mean, it helps that you basically play an entirely different game which happens to have the same baseline math as 5e but numerous completely distinct mechanics and rewritten classes...

 

[DND_Reborn]

I mean, it helps that you basically play an entirely different game which happens to have the same baseline math as 5e but numerous completely distinct mechanics and rewritten classes...

Which has nothing to do at all with the OP.

Everything in the rant is about the new playtest material and comparing it to RAW 5E.

 

[James Gasik]

I can understand why they want back to the drawing board, given 'A compelling opposite to the tiefling' has been a thing they've been working on for 26 years. Aasimar were a slot filler at best who never really did anything with it, Deva ended up being anti-Rakshasa, and the newer version of Aasimar didn't really give them a unique visual identity. "Animal headed angels" -is- an identity, and its not like Aasimar ever leaned into the "I guess a Guardinal could be your parent" side of things. Drawing from that side and the obvious Egyptian side of things also is a visual design.

Plus there's a very good theory that Ardlings aren't supposed to be the new Aasimar. They're supposed to be the Generic Anthro Race, holding all of your bear people, your wolf people, and so on. The problem of course is I reckon folks are going to want stuff more specific to those animals to fill that niche properly. You don't want angel wings, you want bear-like toughness, or the enhanced senses of a wolf, or just, a ridonculous bite

Yeah, we haven't really seen them mention Aasimar of different parentage since 2e, when they appeared in the Planeswalker's Handbook. And now they're a different race entirely.

 

[Corinnguard]

To find Aasimar of different parentage prior to what 1D&D is trying to do, you only need to look at 1st Edition Pathfinder's Blood of Angels. In that book you have traits for generic Aasimar (Aasimar who really don't know who their Celestial ancestor was) and 6 distinct Aasimar Heritages- Idyllkin, Angelkin, Lawbringers, Musetouched, Plumekith and Emberkin. These Aasimars were descendants of the Agathions (the PF take on the Guardinals), Angels, Archon, Azata (the PF equivalent of 3e's Eladrin), Garuda and Peri.

For the Tieflings, check out 1st Edition Pathfinder's Blood of Fiends.

I have to wonder why WoTC only now decided to look at the Aasimar and Tieflings this way. Some of the ideas I have seen for 1D&D so far (ex. backgrounds) were already done sometime ago by their competitors- Paizo and now En Publishing.

 

[TerraDave]

They are definitely de-OSing it. I guess the OSR was a thing around when 4e came out, and they needed the biggest tent possible, so that had a lot of nods to pre 3e gaming in 5.0.

Mandatory feats is the most obvious one, hardwired inspiration is another, race changes a third, but there are a lot of steps away from the first editions here. I mean daggers still do 1d4 damage--probably--clerics remains good healers, elves still seem to be extra special, and so on, but various OS nods are being removed.

 

[Umbran]

They are definitely de-OSing it. I guess the OSR was a thing around when 4e came out, and they needed the biggest tent possible, so that had a lot of nods to pre 3e gaming in 5.0.

Yeah, but in the ensuing years, they've picked up a whole lot of new players, for whom "OS" means diddly. Several years ago, they looked at who the market was then. Today, they look at who the market is now.

 

[Umbran]

Notice, this is a (-) thread

Mod Note:
Just so everyone is clear, we do not support "(-) threads". It's not a thing.

 

[TerraDave]

Yeah, but in the ensuing years, they've picked up a whole lot of new players, for whom "OS" means diddly. Several years ago, they looked at who the market was then. Today, they look at who the market is now.

Oh sure. The problem there is that many of those are newish and casual gamers who may not be looking for a jump in complexity, and 1 D&D seems to be at least a little more complicated.

Turning to 20+ year old game tech like starting feats/talents and hero points isn’t necessarily the answer either for your wave of new players.

 

[Lanefan]

They never cared about that in the D&D Next playtest, why would they start now? "Echo chamber" is precisely what killed the original (much much better) Sorcerer and Warlock concepts, among other things during the public playtest. Why is an echo chamber a problem now when it wasn't back then?

IMO it was a problem back then too; for example how many people dared say there didn't even need to be a Warlock class at all, rather than just suggest tweaking it?