Only the Lonely: Why We Demand Official Product

[Hussar]

Doesn't matter if he's biased. If he doesn't like dragonborn and dragonborn are around in the game, the setting is worse for him. Might not be for you, but you don't get to judge what he considers better or worse on some objective scale.

If he was arguing that it was "worse for him", he'd get a whole lot less push back. However, he's trying to argue that the addition of a dragonborn objectively made Forgotten Realms "worse". A completely unsupportable statement.

It would help a LOT if folks would stop trying to present their opinions as facts.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

FR blew up the world to shoehorn them in.

The Realm Shaking Event to usher in 4e was just plain stupid. I couldn't agree with you more. But its stupid because it's stupid, not because it introduced dragonborn.

They could have just been described as a new race clawing it's way out of Chult and establishing a regional presence....or maybe a result of a secret breeding program amongst all dragons for some mysterious purpose...or maybe they didn't need to explain it at all and could have just said they existed all along but in small numbers.

It's not like we have to have a RSE everytime we create a new sentient creature in a monster manual and I don't see why they have to do it to add dragonborn.

NOTE: This applies to Greyhawk too. It's a big world. Dragonborn can be out there somewhere without a big to-do. You have a spaceship in a mountain, maybe they came from that planet.

 

[Hussar]

It is a point to remember that the 4e shakeup of Forgotten Realms served more than a few purposes, even if it largely failed at all of them. Sure, it was to add in the new 4e races, but, also, it was meant as a soft-reboot of the setting to clear away the accumulated cruft of the past thirty years in the hopes of attracting new fans.

Yup, it failed. It failed for all sorts of reasons, but, primarily it failed because it was tied to 4e and the swirling mess that 4e became. I'm not sure I'd point to any single thing as causing the failure.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You didn't ask for evidence you just asked for examples.

FR blew up the world to shoehorn them in.

That's how they where added, not the fact a race was added. There was no need to do anything to the setting, because any core rules D&D setting is teaming with far more sentient non-human races than the Moss Eisley Cantana. Take lizardfolk - added in Volo's? No, they had been part of Greyhawk/FR from the beginning - they are in the 1st edition Monster Manual, along with tritons, orcs, sea elves, fiends that can interbreed with humans etc etc. And with all those sentients running around it's not surprising if one or two others escape notice.

That's why Greyhawk doesn't work as a human-centric world - the Monster Manual says it's full of aliens, whether or not the DM allows them to be player characters. If you want a human-centric campaign world the first thing you need to do is tear up most of the Monster Manual.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Watching The Orville, seeing the shuttles fly to the planet makes me laugh every time I see 30-40 seconds of the show's runtime spent on this. (Aka, the second reason they used transporters instead of model shoots of a shuttle flying to the planet.)

Have you never seen Thunderbirds...


(It isn't a bug, it's a feature)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And, to be brutally honest... not every GM is a writer of intricate novels. Many of us don't come up with particularly interesting or tangled situations as the basis for their adventures. For these folks, a published adventure can save them a lot of brain-wracking.

Very few D&D adventures can be described as "intricate", whether homebrew or published. They are usually as formulaic as an episode of Columbo, and like Columbo none the worse for that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Heck, Tomoachan was pretty much the sum total of the information we had on the Olman society for a long, long time. It still is the basis for the setting information.

Hidden Shrine was based on real world cultures, with a few names changed, and very well researched. If you want to know more about the "Olmans" you just need to go back to the source material.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's how they where added, not the fact a race was added. There was no need to do anything to the setting, because any core rules D&D setting is teaming with far more sentient non-human races than the Moss Eisley Cantana. Take lizardfolk - added in Volo's? No, they had been part of Greyhawk/FR from the beginning - they are in the 1st edition Monster Manual, along with tritons, orcs, sea elves, fiends that can interbreed with humans etc etc. And with all those sentients running around it's not surprising if one or two others escape notice.

That's why Greyhawk doesn't work as a human-centric world - the Monster Manual says it's full of aliens, whether or not the DM allows them to be player characters. If you want a human-centric campaign world the first thing you need to do is tear up most of the Monster Manual.

You do realize humanocentric doesn't mean other races don't exist.

What you're allowed to play is. Some races work better as NPCs and if allowed may not have the easiest reception.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You do realize humanocentric doesn't mean other races don't exist.

What you're allowed to play is. Some races work better as NPCs and if allowed may not have the easiest reception.

If the world is as full of aliens as Greyhawk, people aren't going to treat an alien turning up in the local tavern as remotely strange.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

If you want a human-centric campaign world the first thing you need to do is tear up most of the Monster Manual.

If you want a human-centric campaign, the only thing you have to do is to say "Hey, how about a human-centric campaign?"