D&D 5E Orcs and Drow in YOUR game (poll */comments +)

[Azzy]

Whether something is core or not is highly relevant.

In 2e there's enough splat product that if I dug deep enough I could probably find quotes that prove I have two thumbs on my left hand. 3e is even worse.

When comparing editions there's little if any point in going beyond core (and for 4e, that's just the first round of DMG-PH-MM).

You might want to check out what was considered "core rules" in 2e. Like Hussar points out, the slim definition of the PHB/DMG/MM as core only was a 3e term.

 

[Lyxen]

Let's start with that. You said that the "basic premise of D&D is that the gods are there", but that doesn't follow the history of D&D (in which clerics were an add-on appearing first in the Blackmoor supplement, and gods were largely an afterthought until Gygax's players bugged him about them and then going from two to being all over the place).

My turn to call BS. This is from supplement 1 Monsters and Men, Page 18, 1974 OD&D:

Until 2e, then 3e, proposed as options to worship silly things like Forces or Philosophies, being a cleric/priest meant that there was at least one god to worship, and it has been the case since then. And yes, simply having mortal agents like clerics is called meddling in mortal affairs.

It's simply the basic premise of the game. It does not mean all the time, but, once more, exceptions are just that, exceptional. And in all my years of playing, I've never ever seen someone play a cleric without a god.

 

[Azzy]

If you want to go that far, the first adventures were about lost temples... temples = gods.
As soon as clerics were introduced, gods were too.
As soon as the head of D&D pointed its head in an official boxed set, clerics were there.
1st player handbook ever? Clerics were there.
1st splat book ever? Deities and demi gods.

A game in its infancy, such as D&D had already the pîllage of lost temples and endless dungeons beneath them.
And what about Blackmoor? The temple of the Gods...

You mean the Temple of the Frog? And that the adventure has robots in it?

The first published adventure ever talks about lost gods.

Doesn't mean meddling gods.

B2 speaks about the Gods of chaos.
I think you only see what you want to see. The gods have always been there. The cleric class? Nope. But the gods? Yep. Clerics were added simply to add healing, and a justifications for the healing trips and the cure the characters were seeking between forays. By making the cleric class available, they just shorten the number of trips required to get to town to get... healing at the temple...

This is more random nonsense. You claim that meddling gods are "the basic premise of D&D". I claim BS. You can layer on many nonsequiters and moving goalposts, but I reject your claim entirely. D&D wasn't predicated on gods, let alone meddling gods. There's plenty of settings for that, but basic premise it isn't.

 

[Azzy]

Until 2e, then 3e, proposed as options to worship silly things like Forces or Philosophies, being a cleric/priest meant that there was at least one god to worship, and it has been the case since then. And yes, simply having mortal agents like clerics is called meddling in mortal affairs.

It's simply the basic premise of the game. It does not mean all the time, but, once more, exceptions are just that, exceptional. And in all my years of playing, I've never ever seen someone play a cleric without a god.

Premise. I don't think that word means what you think it does.
Also, see B/X, BECMI, etc. for clerics without gods.

 

[Lanefan]

Not commenting at all on the whole gods debate, but, @Azzy is right when it comes to 1e and 2e.

The notion of "Core Rules" was a 3e invention that didn't exist in AD&D. In AD&D, ALL RULES were core, except those that were specifically called out as optional. Thus, you see Barbarians (as the class) being used in 1e modules like Isle of the Ape. Rules from various, what is now termed "splats" appeared and were referenced repeatedly by later publications.

The Wilderness Survival Guide (to pick an example) is every bit as core as the Player's Handbook in 1e. As is Unearthed Arcana. The Complete Guides in 2e were also just as core as the Player's Handbook. You were presumed to be using them. Heck the books often referenced each other.

For 1e: given that UA was basically a compilation of slightly-modified Dragon articles from prior years, despite EGG's published urgings to the contrary we always gave it the same weight we gave anything in Dragon: it's all optional. We looked at DSG and WSG much the same way, though by the time those came out we'd done so much kitbashing that they were of at best very limited use in any case. And as OA was somewhat intended to be a replacement system, we almost completely ignored it other than a tiny bit of idea-poaching.

For 2e: even at the time very little of what we now consider splat was seen as anything but optional.

 

[Azzy]

My turn to call BS. This is from supplement 1 Monsters and Men, Page 18, 1974 OD&D:

View attachment 151329

My bad, I thought the class was supplementary. Must have mixed it up with the thief. I'm thinking per-publication, where the cleric was derived from Sir Fang.

 

[Lanefan]

This is more random nonsense. You claim that meddling gods are "the basic premise of D&D". I claim BS. You can layer on many nonsequiters and moving goalposts, but I reject your claim entirely. D&D wasn't predicated on gods, let alone meddling gods. There's plenty of settings for that, but basic premise it isn't.

The authors of 1e's Deities and Demigods might beg to differ, as might the authors of numerous early-days adventures from both 1e and Basic. The 1e PH states that "All Clerics have their own spells, bestowed upon them by their deity ..." under the class write-up; and that's mighty difficult if there's no deities.

Deities and Demigods even gives vague odds for divine intervention, and while infrequent it'd still happen often enough on a global scale to give the "meddling gods" school of thought a little traction - never mind certain deities visiting for their own reasons unrelated to what their Clerics/followers might be doing.

 

[Azzy]

The authors of 1e's Deities and Demigods might beg to differ, as might the authors of numerous early-days adventures from both 1e and Basic. The 1e PH states that "All Clerics have their own spells, bestowed upon them by their deity ..." under the class write-up; and that's mighty difficult if there's no deities.

You MIGHT have a point if a) I said or were saying that D&D can't have deities, b) clerics in B/X, BECMI, etc. had the same language, c) existing were the same thing as meddling, or d) something else that also isn't a part of my retort to Helldritch.

Deities and Demigods even gives vague odds for divine intervention, and while infrequent it'd still happen often enough on a global scale to give the "meddling gods" school of thought a little traction - never mind certain deities visiting for their own reasons unrelated to what their Clerics/followers might be doing.

Wait... I thought we weren't supposed to appeal to anything other than the PHB/DMG/MM. Has that changed now or am I just the one not allowed to?

 

[Helldritch]

Not commenting at all on the whole gods debate, but, @Azzy is right when it comes to 1e and 2e.

The notion of "Core Rules" was a 3e invention that didn't exist in AD&D. In AD&D, ALL RULES were core, except those that were specifically called out as optional. Thus, you see Barbarians (as the class) being used in 1e modules like Isle of the Ape. Rules from various, what is now termed "splats" appeared and were referenced repeatedly by later publications.

The Wilderness Survival Guide (to pick an example) is every bit as core as the Player's Handbook in 1e. As is Unearthed Arcana. The Complete Guides in 2e were also just as core as the Player's Handbook. You were presumed to be using them. Heck the books often referenced each other.

Only setting specific books were truly optional.

So you claim. But the community at the time, though communication was limited to letters and phone calls, would not use UA or WSG or DSG in any tournament I have seen. Be it in Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto or in my region of Chicoutimi. I was active enough back then and no one ever used these except in personal games and even then, "serious" DMs would not allow everything in the UA.

Of course TSR would try to impose the UA in their latest adventure WG8, the Isle of the Ape. And they are the first ones to say not use the Cavalier, alongside "limited level classes" such as the monk, assassin and bard... Consistency was not a TSR moto.

You mean the Temple of the Frog? And that the adventure has robots in it?

Nope, that one came later. It was a never published adventure mentioned in some articles in the Dragon Magazine. Can't remember which one though and I lost all my copies in a fire years ago...

Doesn't mean meddling gods.

For me and many others it does.

This is more random nonsense. You claim that meddling gods are "the basic premise of D&D". I claim BS. You can layer on many nonsequiters and moving goalposts, but I reject your claim entirely. D&D wasn't predicated on gods, let alone meddling gods. There's plenty of settings for that, but basic premise it isn't.

Unfortunately this in mentioned in the PHB (divine intervention), in the DMG and in the MM as the demons and devils are fighting the gods... The gods are everywhere in the three core books.
Just the fact that the gods are giving spells to their cleric is a meddling.

 

[Azzy]

Unfortunately this in mentioned in the PHB (divine intervention), in the DMG and in the MM as the demons and devils are fighting the gods... The gods are everywhere in the three core books.
Just the fact that the gods are giving spells to their cleric is a meddling.

<snipped a bunch of irrelevant crap>

You seem to be using the term "meddling" differently (and much more loosely) than me. Simply existing and granting spells isn't meddling.