D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Micah Sweet]

And others never ever ever have put up pages of hysterical rants about how utterly god-awful players are and how they NEED to be subject to extremely tight constraints or else they'll destroy things.

I think you'll find there's plenty of digital ink spilled here about how bad behavior from players completely requires GMs to suspect misbehavior from all fronts, while simultaneously demanding nigh-infinite trust that the GM would never, ever abuse the powers they lay claim to.

Edit: May as well combine this with the other response I have for you.


Aaaaand here we have the goalposts moving at the speed of light.

Sorry, not gonna accept this line of reasoning. It's a default ancestry that has been present in some degree for at least three editions running. (IIRC there was something in...1e, from Dragon mag, that looks shockingly like a dragonborn in race-as-class form, sans scaly dreadlocks of course, except that they "ate" magic items instead of wearing them directly. Neat idea, not really my cuppa but I could work with it if the GM expected only "in-edition" content.) It's been a core ancestry for, at this point, 18 years. It's one of the most popular non-human options in the game; as of the most recent statistics, behind only half-elf and elf, and half-elf got straight-up deleted in 5.5e, so...dragonborn are theoretically now the second-most-popular non-human ancestry in D&D? I mean, if you believe the statistics coming from the official sources.

OK? No sure what relevance the popularity of dragonborn has on this discussion. Like, at all. I like dragonborn fine, and I know you do. Why does that matter?

 

[TwoSix]

I want thief-lings now though. They sound fun.

We call them roguelings now.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

OK? No sure what relevance the popularity of dragonborn has on this discussion. Like, at all. I like dragonborn fine, and I know you do. Why does that matter?

The point was, someone being real real persnickety about "absolutely NO dragonborn!!!" isn't just excluding some weird hyperspecific interest. They're excluding a large chunk of players--who have been used to seeing dragonborn for at least a decade. Seems like an unwise move, if it's being made for light and transient reasons--and if it isn't, it seems weird that they would bristle at needing to explain themselves, rather than, as Lanefan explicitly put it, deciding to "pull rank" at the first sign of disagreement.

Perhaps let me rephrase. Consider a setting that has, say, no elves, the most popular non-human race. (I'm aware official such settings exist. Assume this is homebrew, and recently-created, at least compared to when 5e came out.) Don't you think someone who did that would be pretty likely to expect pushback from their players? That they'd need to, I dunno, actually convince them that the exclusion was warranted and appropriate, given the immense popularity of that option?

Why doesn't that apply to dragonborn? Why is it that one gets to be the whipping-post (well, them or tieflings, who have been around even longer!), the one everyone is like "this should obviously be a trivial exclusion"?

"They're old" is a pretty lame excuse. Tieflings have now been a D&D thing for longer than the time before tieflings. Dragonborn are getting close; they first appeared as "Dragonborn of Bahamut" (and "Dragonspawn of Tiamat") in Races of the Dragon, a 2006 book. "They're common" is simply the previous thing restated; prior to Tolkien, "elves" were primarily little cutesy sprites (hence why the Keeblers are "elves" rather than gnomes or whatever).

So why is it excluding elves either never comes up, or gets the expectation that a GM is gonna have to work to sell their players on it? It's gonna be almost as much of an ask as dragonborn--because both are quite popular--and history/establishment is no longer a particularly functional excuse. What gives?

 

[bloodtide]

I don't understand why tieflings need a thing that corresponds to hell. Why can't they be--for example--people descended from the byproducts of magical experiments? Or, perhaps, an ethnic group from a distant land, that the local population simply falsely believes that they're scary bad guys when literally no such thing exists? Or...(etc.) Point being, I don't understand this bright line. If it's truly an absolute, utter impasse, we find that out by talking, not by people laying down the law from on high.

It does very much water down things when anything can be anything, then nothing is really anything. When your at the point of just pure randomness, then you have a mess of a game.

And.....you would sure disagree with a DM doing it, right? If some chicken eggs "just suddenly" grew into hostile tieflings and attacked your character. Would you be celebrating the DMs creativity?

More or less, this seems to go far beyond "in-fiction integrity"; it is specifically that, because you didn't conceive of something that looks like a tiefling maybe possibly appearing somewhere in this world, nothing with that appearance can ever appear in this world. That's a dramatically stronger position, and is more or less the kind of thing I've been referring to above. It's not just that the fiction must remain unchanged, it's that the visualization in your head must remain unchanged.

The point would be a tiefling is a fairly specific thing. It is not "just whatever you want it to be on a whim", then it is nothing.

If a good DM really wanted a "new something", they could just make a new race to fit what is needed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It does very much water down things when anything can be anything, then nothing is really anything.

You....do realize that the fundamental nature of fiction, of any kind, IS that anything can be anything if you build it up to be so...?

That's the beautiful thing about our hobby. We can speak of whatever we wish to.

When your at the point of just pure randomness, then you have a mess of a game.

No, see, here you've erred. You have conflated "nothing has an inherent nature in fiction" with "so everything is 100% pure randomness."

The two are absolutely not the same. Remember, before Tolkien, "elf" meant things like Keeblers. Now it means gorgeous, elegant relics of a better time wasting away before they sail off to Heaven.

And.....you would sure disagree with a DM doing it, right? If some chicken eggs "just suddenly" grew into hostile tieflings and attacked your character. Would you be celebrating the DMs creativity?

I mean, it depends. Did they actually build up to that? Did we, for example, see some horrible mutated chickens lying dead beforehand? Did we see shattered, oversized eggs that smelled of smoke and sulfur? Did we have a chance to find out what was involved?

If the answer to at least most of those questions is "yes", then yeah, I might actually find that highly creative and interesting. It invites a great many questions. It also invites some humorous jabs based on Diogenes' famous criticism of Plato's Academy by throwing down a plucked chicken in the middle of the school and declaring, "Behold, a man!" because the Academy had defined "a man" to mean "a featherless biped".

The point would be a tiefling is a fairly specific thing. It is not "just whatever you want it to be on a whim", then it is nothing.

Nah. "Tiefling" has been many things over the years, and the specific part of it that is essential to any given fan doesn't need to be the same as the specific part essential to a different fan. That's the nature of being a fan of some kind of fiction. Different people get different things out of it. It's good, and healthy, that D&D provide an experience where that can happen--it means it embraces a wide variety of players, who can then organize amongst themselves to find copacetic groups.

If a good DM really wanted a "new something", they could just make a new race to fit what is needed.

Or they can repurpose what exists. Happens all the time. WoW wanted bull-people, but didn't want all the baggage that tends to come with "minotaurs". So they invented tauren, which are...essentially minotaurs, with none of the cultural association of minotaurs (they aren't linked to mazes, they aren't monsters, they don't do anything horrendously awful, they're vegetarians, their motifs are Native American rather than Greek, etc.) Alternatively, sometimes you invert a usual association and keep everything else. Orcs and dwarves are subtypes of elf in the Elder Scrolls universe--and the latter, Dwemer, haven't existed in the mortal world for thousands of years after they experimented with reality-altering magitech craziness and accidentally expunged (or possibly "ascended") their whole culture/species simultaneously.

Or, as mentioned above, what Tolkien did to elves (and dwarves, for that matter). He took something that existed, and reinvented it in such a compelling, exciting way, it's been the dominant narrative for almost ninety years (The Hobbit was first published in 1937.)

If Tolkien were forbidden from re-inventing an existing fictional concept in a radical new way, most of fantasy fiction as we understand it today wouldn't exist. By your own arguments, Tolkien elves should never have been--and yet now they are inextricable from "fantasy" as we know it.

 

[Enrahim]

I agree that it's ridiculous. I disagree that it is even remotely analogous to what I described.

Fair enough. Thank you for replying. I found your answers nice, and I new spark of inspirarion for where the communication might have been lead astray.

The toy-owner:

• Provided "clear instructions". Instructions, outside of the context of teaching, are not part of friendly interaction. They are dictates.

I think this might be a critical observation that might have blindsided me! I am a former teacher and non-native speaker. For me throwing out the word "instruct" in the teaching sense in an inaproperiate context just seem like such an obvious mistake to make in hindsight. I think I had more in mind the boy talking about what tools should be used for what purpose on the hair of the barbie doll, than the drill sergeant pointing exactly where to put the toy car, and in what direction to push it. Indeed the rest sort of doesn't make sense with the drill sergeant vision. How can there be any suggestions to shoot down if these comprehensive detail instructions was followed with no question?

So is it really this it boils down to. The ambiguity of a single word?

• Expected--and received--instantaneous deference to ANY expressed opinion with regard to the relevant subject (here, the toy).

Who say it was expected? Certanly not me expliciitely. And not you either, as this was clearly unexpected behavior from merely good friends. Is it really just an inference from the dictate understanding of "instruct"?

• Expected--and saw--a complete absence of any form of questioning or pushback. Zip zero nada.

Who say it was expected? Certanly not me explicitely. And not you either, as this was clearly unexpected behavior from merely good friends. Is it really just an inference from the dictate understanding of "instruct"?

Instructions, instantaneous deference, and a complete absence of being able to voice one's alternative opinion is the operative thing here.

How can a suggestion of doing something harmful to the toy be shot down if there are no ability to even voice such a suggestion? And as the qualifier of worry for damage is present for the shooting it down, it might seem to be implied that there are suggestions for use that is actually both voiced and approved?

Yes, I think a server is going to receive instructions from a dining customer. Yes, I think that server should show instantaneous deference to any customer instruction, request, or opinion, so long as the thing in question isn't something illegal, immoral, or in violation of company policy or the like (since those are higher-tier obligations). Yes, I think that diners expect, and usually see, a complete absence of challenge to their dining choices.

Hence--with the caveat that the employer in some sense "outranks" the customer--a dining customer at a sit-down restaurant DOES have "absolute power" over their server.

* Deferred to end as a foot note.

Doubly so because, just as with my previous answer of "the toy-owner is using their status, so that the non-toy-owners are desirous of being associated with that status", here there's a very clear "the service employee desires something from the customer who has power over them", namely, gratuity payment. It's inherently transactional. Friendship is not.

The desire for association with status is purely a figment of your imagination. This is not present in explicit writing, nor in my original vision that spawned this text. Indeed this sharing is a nice bonding exercise. This fact is explicitely established in my third sentence. I absolutely do not consider a transactional status power play a nice bonding exercise.

-----------

So where does this leave us? My suggested post mortem is that I used an ambigous word in a context where the wrong meaning was the natural intepretation for someone with a more normal background than me. This caused my text to become inherently incoherent. However rather than recognising and pointing out these incoherences right away you managed to construct a coherent vision for yourself that you deemed matched my description sufficiently well to formulate a reply. We then went on for a dozen posts or so based on different visions, but neither of us being able to recognise clearly that there was a difference in vision. First when vulnerability came up as a keyword managed I to give a description of my vision that you recognised as clearly incompatible with your vision. Nesting up where it went wrong has been a long and laborious process.

But I think we might now possibly have succeeded? Or what do you think? And is there anything we can try to learn from this to make similar situations less likely to happen or easier to detect in the future? Might there be any merit in my speculation that this kind of differences in vision might be plaguing parts of this thread?

-----------------
* PS: My resturant experience is that it is very rare indeed to be instantly served by a waiter. Too many other customers that is competing for their attention. My power definitely do not feel absolute among so many kings

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The point was, someone being real real persnickety about "absolutely NO dragonborn!!!" isn't just excluding some weird hyperspecific interest. They're excluding a large chunk of players--who have been used to seeing dragonborn for at least a decade. Seems like an unwise move, if it's being made for light and transient reasons--and if it isn't, it seems weird that they would bristle at needing to explain themselves, rather than, as Lanefan explicitly put it, deciding to "pull rank" at the first sign of disagreement.

Perhaps let me rephrase. Consider a setting that has, say, no elves, the most popular non-human race. (I'm aware official such settings exist. Assume this is homebrew, and recently-created, at least compared to when 5e came out.) Don't you think someone who did that would be pretty likely to expect pushback from their players? That they'd need to, I dunno, actually convince them that the exclusion was warranted and appropriate, given the immense popularity of that option?

Why doesn't that apply to dragonborn? Why is it that one gets to be the whipping-post (well, them or tieflings, who have been around even longer!), the one everyone is like "this should obviously be a trivial exclusion"?

"They're old" is a pretty lame excuse. Tieflings have now been a D&D thing for longer than the time before tieflings. Dragonborn are getting close; they first appeared as "Dragonborn of Bahamut" (and "Dragonspawn of Tiamat") in Races of the Dragon, a 2006 book. "They're common" is simply the previous thing restated; prior to Tolkien, "elves" were primarily little cutesy sprites (hence why the Keeblers are "elves" rather than gnomes or whatever).

So why is it excluding elves either never comes up, or gets the expectation that a GM is gonna have to work to sell their players on it? It's gonna be almost as much of an ask as dragonborn--because both are quite popular--and history/establishment is no longer a particularly functional excuse. What gives?

I'm sorry, but to me this comes across as some weird persecution complex. No one in this thread has singled out dragonborn or even mentioned them besides you. I don't think elves or dragonborn are any different in this regard. Nor I expect any significant push back from excluding either. I'm sorry if you've had negative experiences regarding this, but if it is more common ro exclude dragonborn than the elves, then it merely tells us that more setting creators dislike dragonborns than elves.

And frankly, I find the whole notion of having very specific preconceived character concepts independent of the setting just weird. Like "elf" or "dragonborn" means basically nothing if detached from the setting that informs them. Tolkien elves are completely different than Elf Quest elves, as are Dark Sun elves from Forgotten Realms elves. Similarly I don't think you would necessarily find feral and dinosaur-like dragonborn-lizardfolk hybrids of my Artra suitable of your visions of silvery noble dragonborn paladin. Like sure, you can have idea of archetypes like "acerbic genius who seems cold but is ultimately a good guy" and stuff like that, but that can be a necromancer in D&D or a Vulcan in Star Trek and many different things. "Dragonborn paladin" is not a character concept, if detached from a setting it is merely a description of certain combination of mechanical packages.

 

[Faolyn]

No. It's doesn't. That's the point. WHY is never, ever explained in D&D. All that you get is the result. The character fell. Why did the character fall? We have no idea. The system is silent. Why did the character miss (or hit)? The system is silent. We have no idea.

That's the point.

A simulationist system will provide some nugget of information about how something happened. You missed because the target dodged. You failed to hurt the baddy because it was too tough and you hit wasn't strong enough. So on and so forth. When the system provides NO information about how something happened, it's not simulating anything.

But it's not making stuff up out of thin air, which is what you claimed.

And you know what? You can figure out why you missed or fell if you are actually willing to do the math. In 5e, a person's AC is their armor + Dex mod + magical or circumstance bonuses. So if a person is wearing chain mail (AC 16) and has a Dex of 14 (+2 bonus), their AC is 18. If you roll a 17, then it's obvious they dodged--you would have hit them if it weren't for their Dex. If you rolled a 14, then you hit their armor.

Ditto climbing. Compare the results of your roll + mods to the DC. Say the DC was 15 with no special complications involved. You rolled a 16 on the die. Looks like skill barely came into it--it was mostly luck and determination that got you ahead. You rolled a 13 on the die, but your Athletics mod is +4? You had to rely on your skill to climb. You rolled a 10, with a +4 from Athletics, but also were blessed with guidance and that gave you a +2? Divine grace got you there.

The thing is, most of us just eyeball that stuff because it's not all that important. As I said, we have an imagination. We don't need the book to tell us why something succeeded or failed most of the time, because most of the time it's either pretty obvious or easy to make up. And as a note, you can't rely on the rules to help you with a sim game if you're relying on an RNG, because there's no way a sim game can accurately simulate what happens if the burly fighter rolls a 2 to bash down a door and the scrawny wizard rolls a nat 20.

Edit for pronouns.

 

[Faolyn]

Well, it's true. I can't really argue against that. If you enjoy walking a thousand miles, a car is certainly not a faster way to travel.

And a car is certainly a worse way to travel if you want to really learn about the place you're traveling through.

 

[Faolyn]

What is the reason for the player to insist on playing dragonborn, that is not similarly a red flag for allowing them into the campaign?

Because they really, really like dragonborn?

I mean, you're probably thinking they're picking the heritage for the bonuses, but some people just really like playing certain heritages for the aesthetics. I have two players in my group who, if they can, will always play some sort of cat-folk, even if it's just in appearance. (Fortunately, neither of these people fall into the "creepy furry" stereotype.) If I can, I'll pick a plane-touched of some sort. They speak to me, or perhaps to my neurodiverse ace-ness.

Obviously, there's going to be people who pick certain heritages because they get that bonus or ability which lets them win D&D somehow, and I'd consider that to be a red flag. But picking dragonborn because they feel like it? Nah. Especially not in a magical world that also has centaurs and owlbears and other such things.