Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="D+1" data-source="post: 1308451" data-attributes="member: 13654">IMO this would be an entirely different subject because it has to do not with rule familiarity but underexercised imaginations and the reduced need to use them.  Society today is not what it was 25 years ago when D&D was created.  The game itself is obviously not what it was 25 years ago.  Back then it was not just expected but vitally necessary for all participants to exercise a great deal of imagination because there just wasn't the mass of rules available to eliminate the need.  Now, we have a mass of rules that work very well, with very few holes or exceptions needing fixing.  It eliminates much of the need to make up even basic rules as you go along.  For more experienced players this is a boon but for those less familiar with the game - those who are inexperienced at using their imaginations in the ways that the game requires - it actually removes some of the challenge that prompts creative activity.Take miniatures for example.  They are now featured prominently in the rules because over time more and more players used them.  Recent polls here on ENworld show that most players DO use miniatures whether they have to scrounge for them or can afford to simply buy them.  Now when a new player picks up the rules he isn't immediately aware that the game was EVER played without them.  Their problem then is not that the rules use or don't use miniatures, but that they don't HAVE miniatures.  Their solutions then are either going to be eliminating miniatures once again, or finding alternatives to use for miniatures.  It is the challenge of solving those sorts of issues that will provide the next "revolution" in RPG's.  Rule sets are well established and while they'll never be perfect we are HIGHLY unlikely to see a new edition that makes leaps as dramatic as we got from 2E to 3E as it's a matter of diminishing returns.  But as new players come in and see a need for miniatures, but not having them due to expense or whatever, that is where their creativity gets applied - rather than in fixing the holes in the rules.And again - has anyone disagreed?  They've provided background explaining the status quo but also said, "Sure.  Why not?"That's a pretty obvious answer.  We do it for the same reason we write up ANYTHING about our characters, it's what the game is about.  Inventing details about our characters and then having those characters interact with the world around them - generally by killing things and taking their stuff.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  We write down skin color if it helps us better imagine our characters just as writing down their height and weight does.  Or if it helps us to better describe our characters to others at the table.  And besides, have you ever seen a character sheet that had an entry for "skin color"?  It's generally left as part of "general description" for which there may or may not be an entry.  It's only as important as you want to make it.  Part of the reaction you're getting is probably because we're a little off-balance to discover that it seems to matter to you, when to us it doesn't.And again, I don't see that anyone has even hinted that they think it is wrong to make the changes you suggest, only perhaps that it's unnecessary given the explanations for its current state and the clear recommendations within the game to alter or ignore whatever you don't like.</blockquote>

Verification