D&D General The Importance of Page 33

Rdm · Jun 30, 2020

Fanaelialae said:
I made no claim that they're a good fit. I only explained why they're not an objectively bad fit.

They are objectively a bad fit if they ruin the atmosphere for one of the participants.

Orius · Jun 30, 2020

Mystara may be a kitchen sink, but there's also something of a nostalgia angle here too. Many people who play it want to hearken back to their experiences with the old D&D game and stuff like dragonborn do not have the nostalgia angle. In fact, it might work against it. They might be happy with using the 5e rules for various reasons, but they don't want to use everything either and they're not so hardcore that they want to go back to Classic D&D or its retroclones.

I'm not sure why people can't simply accept that some players just have very different tastes. And forcing a DM to run a game that's not to his taste will result in a bad game. Though I would suspect any long term group generally shares similar tastes and a player going against that is either new or that one guy the group hasn't gotten around to booting yet.

Oofta · Jun 30, 2020

Rdm said:
They are objectively a bad fit if they ruin the atmosphere for one of the participants.

Particularly if that one participant is the DM. I try to do a lot of collaborative story telling (it's the big advantage of a DM vs software) but ultimately the DM has veto rights.

Personally I don't like kitchen sink settings, D&D is already kind of silly, kitchen sink makes it worse for me.

S'mon · Jun 30, 2020

Re Mystara, well it's certainly a Menagerie setting. I wouldn't include Dragonborn as native to the core Known World setting, but I wouldn't object to a far-travelled Dragonborn from another continent. With stuff like half elves and half orcs I'd probably just allow them in. Tieflings are probably the trickiest due to BECMI demons being Immortal-level entities, that might require a lot of retconning to the Mystaran core cosmology. Genasi pose far fewer problems and I'd likely allow them in/from Alasiya.

Fanaelialae · Jun 30, 2020

Rdm said:
They are objectively a bad fit if they ruin the atmosphere for one of the participants.

That's just wordplay. What you're essentially saying there is that anything that ruins the atmosphere for one of the participants in a TTRPG is objectively bad. Which might or might not be a reasonable argument to make.

However, if that thing is a tabaxi in Barovia then it is nonetheless only an issue due to that participant's subjective preference. It isn't objective.

Helldritch · Jun 30, 2020

Neonchameleon said:
If you can use gods as an excuse to not allow races then you can certainly use them as an excuse to allow races. Which means that the continuity argument vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Nope, the argument stays stronger than ever. True gods can do both. But if they don't want something, nothing a mortal can do can change their mind. It is not a matter of "if they want", but a matter of "not wanting". Continuity stays on.

Rdm · Jun 30, 2020

Fanaelialae said:
That's just wordplay. What you're essentially saying there is that anything that ruins the atmosphere for one of the participants in a TTRPG is objectively bad. Which might or might not be a reasonable argument to make.

However, if that thing is a tabaxi in Barovia then it is nonetheless only an issue due to that participant's subjective preference. It isn't objective.

It absolutely is not ‘just wordplay’. The point of the game is the enjoyment of all of the participants, and if it harshes that then it is objectively a bad fit for that groups conception of the setting which is' in the end the only conception of the setting that really matters. What your group thinks about anthropomorphic bunny ninjas in Middle Earth is in all ways irrelevant to my game.

Fanaelialae · Jun 30, 2020

Rdm said:
It absolutely is not ‘just wordplay’. The point of the game is they enjoyment of all of the participants, and if it harshes that then it is objectively a bad fit for that groups conception of the setting which is' in the end all that really matters. What your group thinks about anthropomorphic bunny ninjas in Middle Earth is in all ways irrelevant to my game.

It's nonetheless a preference, and therefore subjective.

LuisCarlos17f · Jun 30, 2020

Sometimes I think the parallel worlds will be canon in the D&D multiverse someday, and this will allow different versions of the official worlds, for example to can add new races or classes, or Krynn(Dragonlance) where the players don't know what is going to happen because it's practically a reboot with an alternate plot.