D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Maxperson]

IIRC

The lore is that every setting is it's own bubble which some deities can enter and some cannot. And those who can enter create the player species for that setting and determines their physiology and native plane.

Actually, any deity can be in pretty much any setting if brought there by worshippers and the most powerful are in many, many, many settings. Often by a different name. So Thor and Kord or Hercules and Kord might be the same god.

There are exceptions of course, if say a setting doesn't have any access to divine power/magic. Gods probably can't exist in a setting like that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you're going to assert that D&D lore is X, when a majority of D&D players (both on a time-slice basis and a longitudinal basis) have never cared about X, I think your assertion collapses.

Players of D&D can, and have, made up whatever fictions they like about where sentient beings come from, how that relates to the gods, how that relates to scientific ecology, etc. Similarly for gods, the cosmos/multiverse, etc.

Of course, but the lore in the books is (or was) still the official lore, no matter how popular or unpopular it is. Any one can change it for their game, but that doesn't change what's in the books.

 

[pemerton]

Of course, but the lore in the books is (or was) still the official lore, no matter how popular or unpopular it is. Any one can change it for their game, but that doesn't change what's in the books.

Which lore in which books?

To begin with AD&D: DDG presents the different pantheons as options that a GM might choose among in the course of inventing a setting; whereas MotP (which prefigures Planescape in this respect) treats all the pantheons as existing simultaneously across the planes. Which is the official lore?

Then consider 4e D&D. The core books for this system, and various supplements, present a default cosmology, in which the deities defeated the primordials in the Dawn War. But the Rules Compendium also canvasses Athas/Dark Sun as an alternative cosmology, in which the primordials defeated the deities in the Dawn War. And there are multiple 4e Dark Sun books.

3E D&D presents the idea of multiple cosmologies linked by the Plane of Shadow; whereas in AD&D the Plane of Shadow is a demi-plane.

I'm sure some rulebook or setting book somewhere talks about the exclusion of gods from some or other setting. There's almost certainly some other book that contradicts that.

D&D gods, worlds, cosmologies, etc have always been whatever anyone wants them to be, whether that anyone is a staff writer for TSR/WotC, or an individual group playing their game at their table.

 

[Minigiant]

Actually, any deity can be in pretty much any setting if brought there by worshippers and the most powerful are in many, many, many settings. Often by a different name. So Thor and Kord or Hercules and Kord might be the same god.

There are exceptions of course, if say a setting doesn't have any access to divine power/magic. Gods probably can't exist in a setting like that.

I don't think that is universal to all settings.

I think the domains/portfolios are universal if they exist on the setting.

So a Tempest Clerc of Zeus and a Tempest Clerc of Kord planeswalk or spelljam to Norseland, they have magic either viathe Tempest domain or Thor.

If Thor has the Tempest Domain, a Tempest Clerc of Zeus and a Tempest Clerc of Kord can't bring in Zeus or Kord into Norseland as a Tempest deity without Thor's or the Overgod's consent.

Now Thor might be Zeus or Kord in that setting and grant power directly under the different name. OR Thor or Zeus might be allies in or outside the setting and grant power to a follow deity's cleric via allyship or respect of the domain.

But if Thor is dead or left in Norseland, a Tempest Clerc of Zeus and a Tempest Clerc of Kord would still have magic but a Tempest Cleric of Thor would have to becomea warlock, chose another good, hope for a loophole, or become powerless.

But you can't simply pray a god into existence. That's 25% the point of Warlocks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which lore in which books?

To begin with AD&D: DDG presents the different pantheons as options that a GM might choose among in the course of inventing a setting; whereas MotP (which prefigures Planescape in this respect) treats all the pantheons as existing simultaneously across the planes. Which is the official lore?

Then consider 4e D&D. The core books for this system, and various supplements, present a default cosmology, in which the deities defeated the primordials in the Dawn War. But the Rules Compendium also canvasses Athas/Dark Sun as an alternative cosmology, in which the primordials defeated the deities in the Dawn War. And there are multiple 4e Dark Sun books.

3E D&D presents the idea of multiple cosmologies linked by the Plane of Shadow; whereas in AD&D the Plane of Shadow is a demi-plane.

I'm sure some rulebook or setting book somewhere talks about the exclusion of gods from some or other setting. There's almost certainly some other book that contradicts that.

D&D gods, worlds, cosmologies, etc have always been whatever anyone wants them to be, whether that anyone is a staff writer for TSR/WotC, or an individual group playing their game at their table.

I said "is (or was)" for a reason. Lore changes over time, subjectively for better or worse.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think that is universal to all settings.

I think the domains/portfolios are universal if they exist on the setting.

So a Tempest Clerc of Zeus and a Tempest Clerc of Kord planeswalk or spelljam to Norseland, they have magic either viathe Tempest domain or Thor.

If Thor has the Tempest Domain, a Tempest Clerc of Zeus and a Tempest Clerc of Kord can't bring in Zeus or Kord into Norseland as a Tempest deity without Thor's or the Overgod's consent.

Where is this written?

 

[Minigiant]

Where is this written?

Don't have to write it

In 5e, you don't lose your divine powers when you planeswalk or spelljam, regardless if your god is dead there.
Therefore someone is letting your magic in or at least not blocking it.

 

[Yaarel]

According to D&D 2024, the divine power source is the Astral Plane itself, specifically its alignment planes. So any setting that has the Astral Plane overlap it, has access to the divine power source.

 

[Hussar]

You need to look up what edition warring is, because calling 5.5e a new edition is not it.

I tell you what, though, if you want to prove that it's all 5e, use only 5e to refer to anything dealing with either the 2014 books or the 2024 books. If it's all 5e, you won't need anything other than 5e to talk about the rules without causing confusion. If you have to differentiate by saying "2014/2024" or "new/old" etc., in order to avoid confusion, then we are dealing with a new edition or half-edition. So if you can use nothing other than 5e and cause no confusion at all, I will concede that it's all one edition.

Oh, and I've made no claim of superiority. I like some stuff from 5.5e, but not other stuff. Same as 5e. Same as 4e. Same as 3e. Same as 3.5e. Same as 2e. Same as 1e. My calling it 5.5e is not any sort of proof that I don't like the edition and/or am trying to assert superiority. Stop trying to ascribe things to me that aren't there.

So it’s a new edition of a player plays an artificer or a warforged character. Because you cannot refer to either solely using 2014 books.

If I’m talking about weapon features, those rules are found in the 2024 phb. If I’m talking about artificers, that’s found in another book. If I’m talking about half-elves, currently the rules are found in the 2014 phb.

None of this is a new “edition”. Your insistence that it must be defined as such is how edition warring works. First force your definition into every single conversation about the game and then continuously bang that definition over and over again.

Good grief it’s been going on for two years now. This isn’t new.

 

[Hussar]

How do you figure? Differentiating between 5e and 5.5e isn't anything hostile or derogatory about either edition. It's literally no different than using 2014 and 2024, 5e and next, or any other differentiation.

Except that 5.5 is always used in a negative context and never in positive.

Add to that the wide eyed innocent expression of, “I heard an FLGS owner say 5.5, therefore that proves it’s not a negative “ or the claims of “many” people think this or that way.

No one uses 5.5 edition as a neutral term. That’s already been poisoned by years of edition warring. And I’ll take it a step further. If someone honestly thinks that it will be taken as a neutral term, they would be wrong. It might be meant neutrally but it won’t be taken that way.