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

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Wasn't there at least one official 4e module that included minion Dragons or similar?

Also, do undead count as humanoids? They show up as minions in various places, if memory serves.

The poster was saying 'not only' i.e. that there are non-humaniod minions as well as humanoid minions. I was saying that the inclusion of non-humanoid minions makes no difference to me so long as there are humanoid minions. Your memory is right, but as you can see it just covers the same ground.

 

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Much inspiration for D&D warriors are pulp heroes of the past, your Conan's and your John Carter's, who routinely slaughter scores of foes to achieve their goals. If that's not ok nowadays, I can see asking D&D to change- but saying the minion mechanic encourages this more than anything else? Feels like a stretch to me.

The word in bold doesn't capture my distaste for the minions mechanics. I've explained why upthread e.g. in my #22,170, #22,139, and #22,125. I don't wish to engage in pretending characters feel confident and powerful mass slaughtering humanoids. For me the game mechanics landscape isn't an undifferentiated blur in this respect, for example I see the AoE spells in a somewhat different light... I think because the minions mechanic is architecting the game reality specifically to ennable narratives of mass slaughter.

Simply put, obliterating scores of enemies is deep in the game's DNA. If make-believe genocide concerns a person (and I'm not saying it shouldn't, mind), then that's something that should have been fixed long ago, and I don't really see how 4e is any more or less at fault than any other edition in this regard.

The 4e minions mechanics is more troubling to me, but 4e overall is not. The rest is largely on par with other versions in these respects. As to whether "obliterating scores of enemies is deep in the game's DNA" maybe so. I haven't played D&D that way for decades so I think that is ultimately settled at the table.

Much inspiration for D&D warriors are pulp heroes of the past, your Conan's and your John Carter's, who routinely slaughter scores of foes to achieve their goals. If that's not ok nowadays, I can see asking D&D to change- but saying the minion mechanic encourages this more than anything else? Feels like a stretch to me.

For me it's not a matter of "not ok nowadays". It was never okay. But if you read the linked posts perhaps you will see that while my preference is motivated by a real-world moral concern (which it seems you agree with) I am not saying it is necessarily immoral in fiction.* Even so, architecting the game reality to ennable narratives of mass slaughter in the way the 4e minions mechanic does goes too far for me. I don't desire that affordance in my fiction.


*We have discussed upthread the long-standing worry that fiction can impact upon real-life morality. Examples were given of positive impacts such as moral-learning. If that means that impact is possible I don't see how one excludes negative impacts as well as positive, and accidental as well as intentional. But we didn't establish compelling evidence drawing a direct line from the minions mechanics... and as you say even if such a line can be drawn that's probably from more points in the game than solely minions. My distaste isn't identical to such moral worries.