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

[Umbran]

A lot of us are more concerned with being heard or proving a point than with what the point actually was/is.

Well, "being heard" is no big thing. "Proving a point" so often comes in as, "Prove I am right and you are wrong," which becomes a problem.

 

[Umbran]

Thus, creating a new species doesn't alter, remove, or create a rule.

Individual species are a package of rules,

So, you create a new package of rules, but no actual new rules? How does that work - creating a new species can only rehash rules that already exist, somehow?

 

[Pedantic]

To me, no. The rule is "here is how species work." In 5.14, the presented races are described as the most common options; in 5.24, it just says "the following options are detailed." Neither book has a rule (or even an implication) that the options are limited to what's presented. Thus, creating a new species doesn't alter, remove, or create a rule.

Individual species are a package of rules, so if you decide that elves don't get darkvision, that's a house rule, because that alters the elf package. If you decide elves can't become paladins, that's a house rule, because that alters the rule that any species can take any class. But species themselves aren't rules.

What do you call those discrete packages of mechanics that players use if not rules? I don't think there's a reasonable carve out here.

 

[Faolyn]

Sorting out what came with what level has been a headache since 3e; I see that, along with a lot of other character complexity added during the WotC era, as a bug rather than a feature.

<shrug> I have no problem with more features, within the limits of what can be easily remembered to be used.

There's no reason why level drain can't work with milestone levelling: the drained character is simply a level behind at each step (or more if multiple levels were lost) until a high-level Restoration can be found. This does, however, point out one huge issue with milestone levelling: there's no 'J-curve' to allow lower-level characters or henches to catch up.

You can always do individual milestones for lower-level characters, but there's not supposed to be lower-level characters in this sort of game.

If 5e's my starting point the two bolded pieces are directly synonymous.

To me, that's an absolute terrible mentality to have. I would never want to play with a GM like that.

If the players also like getting new items (IME nearly all of them love it) then yes, as it allows for more item turnover. Over the long run, gain 10 lose 8 is far more fun and interesting than gain 2 lose 0.

So: (1) All items are interchangeable and meaningless to the players. (2) Because they know that you are willing to destroy things, so there's no point caring about their belongings.

That's good on your players, but I'm inclinded to think they're something of an outlier group in this way.

A group that has mature discussions that leads to better enjoyment for everyone?

Maybe that shouldn't be an outlier. Maybe that should be a goal.

When things aren't balanced*, there's usually only two ways to fix it: nerf one or boost the other. As I've already seen more power creep over the years than I'd really like, my first thought these days is to nerf some things down a bit.

There's been far more power creep with magic than anything else over the editions.

* - and for me to notice or care, it's got to be really out of whack.

This also doesn't speak well of your ability to judge the players' enjoyment of the game.

If these things make the warrior better and-or more versatile at what they do than they were before, it's power creep.

And yet you have no problems with casters being versatile and having more abilities than they had before (via spells that are new to them or even the game).

Which again speaks to the thread's title: here's an option that is practically guaranteed to make the game more interesting--to make combats more interesting--and yet it's getting thrown out without even being tried, because it may make some characters more versatile.

 

[Faolyn]

So, you create a new package of rules, but no actual new rules? How does that work - creating a new species can only rehash rules that already exist, somehow?

Well, yes.

ook at the races from 5.14 and the species from 5.24. Do any of them have traits that aren't also found elsewhere somewhere in the game, in another species, a monster's statblock, or in a spell? Just humans, AFAICT.

Creating a species of Storm Children that have darkvision 60 feet, flight at 5th level, resistance to lightning damage, and the shocking grasp and thunderclap cantrips isn't creating new rules. It's a new species, sure, because I'm pretty sure that no existing species has that combination of traits, but there's no new rules in there.

If you decided to bring back infravision as something distinct from darkvision and blindsight and say that Storm Children have it, that would be a new rule, because infravision isn't in the 5e rules. Those Storm Children would be a species built on that houserule, and they wouldn't be playable in another game that doesn't use those houserules.

If you decide to say blindsight works by detecting body heat and say that it doesn't work on plants, undead, constructs, or inanimate structures (no body heat), that's a houserule because it alters the way an existing rule works. If you then decide say Storm Children have this altered blindsight, they'd be playable elsewhere, because those other games would just use the regular blindsight.

 

[AlViking]

I had a chance to look at https://www.enworld.org/threads/in-your-experience-how-good-are-gms.293390/*. All I can say is that I get that some people are incredibly unlucky when it comes to DMs but I also find it hard to believe that A) D&D would be as popular as it is if most of the DMs were terrible (to the point of players "revolting") and B) That there's an easy solution to it.

I mean, I've had plenty of DMs that were just okay and I've hit a couple that ran games I wasn't interested in, but I wouldn't say they were bad GMs. Meanwhile even with the so-so GMs the other people that I played with made the game fun and worthwhile to me. So to a certain degree I do think this is just a question of preferences and expectations. I don't expect a DM to be semi-professional and there will always be things I would want done differently. But I also think that the game is largely what you make out of it. Like the song says, you can't always get what you want.

Over decades of play and more GMs than I can count if I include public games I could count the number of truly bad GMs on one hand and still have fingers left. But it's also sadly human nature to remember the bad more than the good, the memory of that one truly terrible GM can crowd out the memory of a dozen good GMs. Same way that I talk about bad players ... I've had a lot of fantastic players but I'll always remember the one that wanted to be a werewolf. I know any one person's personal experience isn't an indication of anything but when I've experienced (probably) hundreds of GMs and I've experienced only a handful of bad ones I tend to think I simply have different expectations and definition of "bad".

*answers if you don't want to bother following the link - Most of them 8.7%, More than half, but not a lot more 19.2%, Less than half, my GM's have been mostly good 46.2%, Very few. I've had lots of great GM's 26%.

 

[Umbran]

Well, yes.

ook at the races from 5.14 and the species from 5.24.

That's one case. I am responding to it as a general statement, because I don't see how this generalizes. There is nothing that prevents a new species definition from containing new rules.

 

[Faolyn]

That's one case. I am responding to it as a general statement, because I don't see how this generalizes. There is nothing that prevents a new species definition from containing new rules.

I never said there wasn't.

 

[Umbran]

I never said there wasn't.

Did you mean, "I never said there was."? Because otherwise, this is not a sensible response.

Edit: You know what? Never mind. This will take longer to weed through than it is worth.

 

[Faolyn]

Well, I don't appreciate rules that demand certain specific behavior from the GM like the ones you describe (which I believe have their origin in PBtA and similar narrative-prioritized games), for my part. You also picked the least irritating rules from that category. And I don't see why that stuff can't just be advice anyway. Why mandate it?

I picked those rules at random, not based on what you would find irritating. I haven't found any GM rules in narrative games to be even slightly irritating.

All games demand certain behaviors from the GM. "Be a neutral referee" or "impartial but involved" demands a specific behavior that works to actively prevent the GM from taking certain actions (such as anything that would fall under the rule of cool, or anything that would be described as "antagonistic" or "fan of the players").