D&D 5E The Fate of the Smol

[Baron Opal II]

That’s just bizarre.

Currently you can absolutely play what you want and so can I.

In the old system I cannot without changing the rules.

But the old system is better?

Yes, the old way was better since all you had to do was ignore the recommendations. These books are not holy writ, it is okay to change or ignore whatever rule you wish.

Good evening.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, the old way was better since all you had to do was ignore the recommendations. These books are not holy writ, it is okay to change or ignore whatever rule you wish.

Good evening.

So let’s see if I understand this clearly.

We have two systems.

In one system everyone gets to play what they want.

In the other system only some people get to play what they want and everyone else has to change the rules to play what they want.

I’m sorry but how is this not wanting to force your preferences on other people?

 

[Baron Opal II]

So let’s see if I understand this clearly.

We have two systems.

In one system everyone gets to play what they want.

In the other system only some people get to play what they want and everyone else has to change the rules to play what they want.

I’m sorry but how is this not wanting to force your preferences on other people?

Yes, you are wanting to force your preferences on other people.

Right now I am going to assume that I have lost track of the conversation and that you are not actually being astoundingly arrogant. I have had some very long days lately and am probably getting lost in the weeds of an argument that is mostly of a semantic nature.

As I have stated before, you have your way to play, I have mine, and they are both valid. Do as you wish, and enjoy your time with friends.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It ain't that difficult to understand.

In the current system that removes all ability modifiers to races... those who think large races should be stronger than small ones can easily have that by just not having small races point buy STR past a certain point. The small race player CHOOSES to accept the "reality" of size differential and just place their lower stats in strength. Same way they put their lower numbers into DEX for what they consider a "less agile" race. This can be done with no changes of the rules whatsoever. You can have weak halflings and unwise gnomes and stupid halforks all you want just by where you yourself place your stats. While at the same time... those who want halforks to possibly have really good INTs in order to play halfork wizard characters that are just as good as any other wizard can do so... also with no changes to the rules.

But why does this not work for people? Quite frankly I've always attributed to ego. Many D&D players across the board tend to want to play really, really smart. They want to play to the best of their abilities. And thus... if they determine there's a certain style of game they want (in this case, races having a bit of reality thrust upon them with their ability scores), they need the game to force that reality upon them. They need the game to say "Your halflings can't start with a STR higher than 15"... so that way if/when they choose to play a halfling fighter they can build it to be the best gosh-darn fighter they can make with the rules given, while still having their verisimilitude held up by the halfling being weaker than the halfork.

But if the game doesn't have that restriction... they have to purposefully choose to make a weaker build. They now have to go through the entire campaign knowing they intentionally nerfed themselves right at the start, and they will always have that bugaboo in the back of their heads every time things go sideways. They will always have that thought "Well geez, if I was at max like I could have been, maybe this whole problem wouldn't have happened." They didn't "play smart" when they made their character, they played to theme instead. And while losing the game while doing your best within the rules given is palatable... losing the game when you could have made better choices but intentionally chose not to is not.

And they'd rather force all other players to play like they do by keeping rules like racial ability score bonuses and/or penalties in the game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It ain't that difficult to understand.

In the current system that removes all ability modifiers to races... those who think large races should be stronger than small ones can easily have that by just not having small races point buy STR past a certain point. The small race player CHOOSES to accept the "reality" of size differential and just place their lower stats in strength. Same way they put their lower numbers into DEX for what they consider a "less agile" race. This can be done with no changes of the rules whatsoever. You can have weak halflings and unwise gnomes and stupid halforks all you want just by where you yourself place your stats. While at the same time... those who want halforks to possibly have really good INTs in order to play halfork wizard characters that are just as good as any other wizard can do so... also with no changes to the rules.

But why does this not work for people? Quite frankly I've always attributed to ego. Many D&D players across the board tend to want to play really, really smart. They want to play to the best of their abilities. And thus... if they determine there's a certain style of game they want (in this case, races having a bit of reality thrust upon them with their ability scores), they need the game to force that reality upon them. They need the game to say "Your halflings can't start with a STR higher than 15"... so that way if/when they choose to play a halfling fighter they can build it to be the best gosh-darn fighter they can make with the rules given, while still having their verisimilitude held up by the halfling being weaker than the halfork.

But if the game doesn't have that restriction... they have to purposefully choose to make a weaker build. They now have to go through the entire campaign knowing they intentionally nerfed themselves right at the start, and they will always have that bugaboo in the back of their heads every time things go sideways. They will always have that thought "Well geez, if I was at max like I could have been, maybe this whole problem wouldn't have happened." They didn't "play smart" when they made their character, they played to theme instead. And while losing the game while doing your best within the rules given is palatable... losing the game when you could have made better choices but intentionally chose not to is not.

And they'd rather force all other players to play like they do by keeping rules like racial ability score bonuses and/or penalties in the game.

Right. This is all roughly true. But the rest of the game actually is built on limitations. We could apply this logic consistently. Why not just remove all limits from the races and classes? If you want darkvision, you take it. If you want to have wings, you take them. If you want cast fireballs, you take it. If you want have a rage feature, you take it. Then people can just self-limit themselves in a way they want to. Why it is fine for the game to dictate to limit some things but not others? What's the logic here?

It just seems hypocritical to me when people fixate on this one tiny aspect of the game that they personally have an issue with and say it should be handled via self-limiting instead of rules setting the limitations, yet applying the exact same logic to any other aspect of the game is somehow absurd hyperbole. I just want the game to have coherent and consistent design principles. Either the splats exist to mechanically define and limit things, or they don't and people build what they want and set their limits themselves. Neither of these design principles is objectively better or worse, and I've enjoyed a lot of games with the latter. Though I feel the former is better for D&D.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Just use the original books if you don’t like the changes in the new ones?

To paraphrase Mike Shea: the gaming police aren’t going to come to our tables and take our old books

 

[James Gasik]

Yes, and that will happen. In the past, it was common for gaming groups to not use all the books. 5e's culture, to this point, however, has formed in such a way that people DO want to use all the books (which causes some backlash when they try to innovate and do things differently for different settings- just stroll on over to your local Dragonlance UA thread for details).

If this results in a situation where a good chunk of the player base rejects the new design, well, WotC has broken their base before, and it was pretty bad all around. They killed one game line and took 5 years before giving people a new one. And if you have any experience with the DND Next Playtest, many of the unique, cool ideas they had were mysteriously missing from the final product.

If I end up running another 5e game under the new paradigm, I think what I will say is that, yes, you can play the World's Strongest Gnome if you want to. Or a tall, lanky Bugbear with Strength 10 and high Dexterity. But the setting will treat you as an outlier- all the other Gnomes and Bugbears out there will treat you the same way we treat a human woman who is 7' 7" tall- awe, surprise, and maybe a little fear.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Anyone remember playing competitive Smash Brothers and there was always That Guy who insisted the only way to play was Final Destination, Fox only, no items?

I feel like that whenever WotC tries to open up the game by adding options.

ASIs! No Feats! No magic items.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If I end up running another 5e game under the new paradigm, I think what I will say is that, yes, you can play the World's Strongest Gnome if you want to. Or a tall, lanky Bugbear with Strength 10 and high Dexterity. But the setting will treat you as an outlier- all the other Gnomes and Bugbears out there will treat you the same way we treat a human woman who is 7' 7" tall- awe, surprise, and maybe a little fear.

What.

Count me out of 'we', mate.

I'm not shocked and terrified at WNBA games.

 

[James Gasik]

Was that a bad example? It was the first thing I thought of when thinking about someone who is physically very different than the average human.