D&D General The Importance of Page 33

[clearstream]

Here's my simple question: WTF are you doing using (non-4e) D&D for a no-casters campaign. About 40% of every single non-4e PHB is spells. About two thirds of classes are casters.

You might have missed the chain of posts that I was responding to. Some of their claims might have amounted to saying one could reskin freely. I was testing that proposition with this thought-experiment. If one is unwilling to accept it, then it can easily be narrowed to some subset of spells. Let's say no revival spells (no raise dead etc). Can they be brought back into the campaign by reskinning them?

My general claim is that while the fluff-to-crunch relation is flexible, it is not fungible. That is because when game designers craft mechanics, at times they aim to capture something quite specific in their dynamics. It's not just totally arbitrary.

You don't get a stronger setting by excluding things - you get one by picking things to focus on.

Evidence? For instance, I think the EarthSea setting would be weakened if the author had been made to throw in the kitchen-sink of fantasy and sci-fi races (for the sake of the example, all of them).

 

[Li Shenron]

If you don’t want actually articulate whatever it is, that’s all well and good, but if the intent was to make clear that which I have indicated is unclear, that ain’t gonna do it.

Many of us did articulate, but we didn't satisfy you. You also didn't articulate back, just reiterated your question, so clearly now some people are starting to respond to you more bluntly. I am quite sure nothing we can say will sway your opinion at this point, but there is no reason you should change your mind. Keep your opinion, and move onto something else. I will now do the same.

 

[clearstream]

Many of us did articulate, but we didn't satisfy you. You also didn't articulate back, just reiterated your question, so clearly now some people are starting to respond to you more bluntly. I am quite sure nothing we can say will sway your opinion at this point, but there is no reason you should change your mind. Keep your opinion, and move onto something else. I will now do the same.

I have reached more or less the same point. It seems to come down to taste. I notice when pear is added to the salad, @doctorbadwolf does not. There's probably something else out there that I am not sensitive to, that @doctorbadwolf does notice

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There's an inherent silliness in talking animals. I guess we all perceive the limit in a different way, but most people would agree that if one of the main characters of "Dracula" were a Carebear or Donald Duck, it would change the tone of the novel quite significantly. Some people have the same reaction when it comes to Tabaxi or other exotic D&D species..

No, there isn’t. You and some others perceive a silliness in a feline humanoid (which...isn’t a talking animal any more than a human is), but it isn’t inherent.
But by claiming there is, you’ve given some degree of an actual explanation, rather than just repeating the premise over and over, which I appreciate. You have an association with cartoons that comes to your mind when ever a sapient humanoid that is part of a genus other than primate is in a story, and thus (and here I’m extrapolating a bit) you have a harder time taking the story seriously.

I can grok that. I don’t think that it outweighs a(nother) player’s character concept happening to involve a tabaxi, but it’s comprehensible.

Many of us did articulate, but we didn't satisfy you. You also didn't articulate back, just reiterated your question, so clearly now some people are starting to respond to you more bluntly. I am quite sure nothing we can say will sway your opinion at this point, but there is no reason you should change your mind. Keep your opinion, and move onto something else. I will now do the same.

Do what you want. I seem to be having an actual discussion with a couple other people, however, so I’m gonna go ahead and continue doing that.

I have reached more or less the same point. It seems to come down to taste. I notice when pear is added to the salad, @doctorbadwolf does not. There's probably something else out there that I am not sensitive to, that @doctorbadwolf does notice

Probably.

I think it’s worthwhile to try to dig into “why” on stuff like this, and try to understand it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Gothic horror, which Ravenloft mixes with epic fantasy D&D style, is a more specific genre than just horror.

Genre is something that, if you want, you can bend. So, you want to run a Ravenloft campaign strong in the gothic horror genre . . . but want to allow a PC to play a tabaxi? It can work, but it does stretch the genre. However, nothing wrong with trying to maintain a tight genre feel, as long as you can convince your players to go along with it.

It doesn’t inherently stretch the genre, though.

If someone listens to the CoS run of High Rollers, and taken out of the genre tone because the grave cleric is a tabaxi...honestly I don’t see how that is anything related to the actual genre and tabaxi interacting. It’s a that person thing. Which is fine, we all have our things, but examining them is useful, as is refraining from acting like they’re unavoidable or inherent to whatever thing they’re related to.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

No, there isn’t. You and some others perceive a silliness in a feline humanoid (which...isn’t a talking animal any more than a human is), but it isn’t inherent.

Perception is what you and all the others have been talking about from the start. If you're looking for axioms, I'm not sure you're going to succeed.

 

[clearstream]

Probably.

I think it’s worthwhile to try to dig into “why” on stuff like this, and try to understand it.

Some examples seem to have purchase for you - like first contact - so extrapolate those to assume greater sensitivity. For me, a dwarf would stick out like a sore thumb in an EarthSea setting. The author could probably have integrated them successfully, but if she wanted to spend her energy on other aspects of her setting - that had greater payoff for her tensions and themes - then to me that would make far more sense.

 

[Coroc]

I guess I just...don't understand something very fundamental to other people's view of the game and of stories.

In the CoS thread, someone talked about how their run of CoS was aided by the players leaning in to the theme of despair and gothic/slavic horror by...not playing certain races. To me, the statement reads exactly as reasonable and comprehensible as, "my players helped by only eating spicy food on wednesdays." I just can't fathom how a tabaxi would every possibly change the tone of the story in literally any way.

Like, I ask players to keep their character personalities, alignments, goals, and attitudes toward cooperation with a group of trusted allies, within the themes and goals of the campaign, but...a tabaxi can have any personality, alignment, goals, or attitude toward cooperation and trust.

What am I missing? Is there some sort of emotional shorthand by association that everyone else here has for each race that I just don't have? Like, you see a tabaxi or a tortle or a grung or a gnoll or whatever and just, see something that is outside the text yet fully real for you, that I just don't see?

It is about Ravenloft and gothic horror as such.

You see, your vanilla FR players when encountering a zombie it is just another bag of hitpoints, to overdraw it a bit so you better get the meaning.

In Ravenloft your PC is expected to show (and best RP!) fear when encountering something supernatural, be it a Zombie or something like a Goblyn (yeah in Forlorn they are spelled like that, and they are a bit different to your normal goblins in so far, that their special attack is to bite you directly in your face)

So now you are expected to RP fear when encountering everything besides normal bears and wolves, and you come along wanting to play a Tabaxi or a Dragonborn? Darn, if I am to eventually run away from something looking like a goblin, even as an experienced and battle hardened adventurer, then what will normal townsfolk do, when encountering a dragonborn?

If you want to play Ravenloft like a vanilla campaign your free to do it but imho you miss out all the fun

Edit for more clarity: The need to RP fear and madness is even more essential to Ravenloft than what races you allow there as a DM, but deducting from that you just cannot allow races who fall more or less under the =monster-category. In some domains this might even include elves!

 

[Coroc]

There's an inherent silliness in talking animals. I guess we all perceive the limit in a different way, but most people would agree that if one of the main characters of "Dracula" were a Carebear or Donald Duck, it would change the tone of the novel quite significantly. Some people have the same reaction when it comes to Tabaxi or other exotic D&D species. And yes, the protagonists of a story play an important part in setting the tone. If the main characters of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" were a Halfling to begin with, his eventual transformation would feel less dramatic.

Roflmao, Donald duck in CoS hahaha, I have t okeep that comparison in my mind for the surely upcoming future discussions with the everything-must-go-all-the-time fans.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Gothic horror, which Ravenloft mixes with epic fantasy D&D style, is a more specific genre than just horror.

Genre is something that, if you want, you can bend. So, you want to run a Ravenloft campaign strong in the gothic horror genre . . . but want to allow a PC to play a tabaxi? It can work, but it does stretch the genre. However, nothing wrong with trying to maintain a tight genre feel, as long as you can convince your players to go along with it.

Ravenloft is not just gothic horror. Certainly Barovia is, but the setting outgrew that pretty early on (although for some reason later editions wanted to shrink back to just the Transylvania by another name).

Darkon, by far the most useable of the domains, is fantasy horror, complete with demihuman majority towns. Paridon is Victorian Horror (ie Jack the Ripper), Dementileu, Mordent and Lamordia are 18th century romantic horror. The Amber Wastes is Hammer Horror complete with the Mummy. Bluetspur is Lovecraftian style cosmic horror. There's many flavours and nothing about Tabaxis that render them unsuitable for a campaign set there.