D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The monsters once again know what they're doing.

The answer appears to be chugging along with more 2014 monsters:

I want to start off by thanking you all for understanding the assignment and leaving your comments about which direction I should take The Monsters Know What They’re Doing in going forward. The leading suggestion was doing more with original monster design, which I have to admit is a tempting option. But there were also two votes for “more of the same, please,” and if I add those to the votes for other sourcebooks for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition, 2014 version, then The Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount move into the lead, along with Flee, Mortals! by MCDM. Examining these books seems like the path of least resistance, especially since I own Ravnica already. The Book of Many Things was close behind—it might even have been tied with the aforementioned titles, but one of the possible votes for that book was somewhat ambiguous—and who knows, by the time I get through all of these, maybe we’ll have a second printing of Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants after all. Probably not. But maybe.

Keith did not see this thread, which I suspect will disappoint some folks.

As for r/dndnext subredditors’ reactions to my previous post, they ranged from concurrence with my opinions to reasonable differences of opinion and/or taste to nonsense I won’t dignify here with a response … lots of it. For years, Yoast has warned me that I’m not writing at a sixth-grade level like a blogger ought to, and now I can see why. Let’s just say that the munchkins are very happy that the 2024 revision of 5E is catering to their tastes, would like it to do so even more, and neither understand nor appreciate why changes in that direction might not be to everyone else’s liking.

Eh. Whatever. I’ve always known that my tastes are emphatically not the tastes of the D&D-playing community as a whole—and yet my books sell anyway, which has always struck me as something of a minor miracle for which I’ll always be grateful. Thanks for sticking with me, and I’ll see you next week with my first entry into Ravnica.

 

[mamba]

Keith did not see this thread, which I suspect will disappoint some folks.

after the first few pages it had veered off topic anyway, hard

 

[QuentinGeorge]

"Will you accept that my interests are always more important than yours?" seems at least as accurate.

If you're the one running the game, then yes it is? If they want a tortle heavy world, time for them to DM.

(Doesn't seem complicated to me)

 

[Bae'zel]

Keith Amman: "For years, Yoast has warned me that I’m not writing at a sixth-grade level like a blogger ought to, and now I can see why."

Nice. Every once in a while, I get a reminder how pretentious and condescending writers in this community can be.

 

[Dire Bare]

There are plenty of RPGs out there with unique themes or pitches. You play Blades in the Dark accepting that your character is some kind of underworld criminal. You play Pirate Borg knowing that your character will be... a pirate. You play Household knowing that your character is one of the "little people" of the House.

Why is D&D considered a player free-for-all while other RPGs don't? Why can't I run a D&D campaign with a pitch like "you're all dwarves on an expedition to reclaim a mine from orcs and demons"? Hint, I have and the players loved it.

I've probably missed some of the back and forth over the past dozen or so pages, but . . .

If you invite me over to your D&D game and describe the world and campaign as standard D&D, perhaps in the Realms, Exandria, or a similar homebrew . . . yeah, I'm going to be irritated if you start banning character concepts seemingly arbitrarily, which is how this whole thread-drift argument started out. No tortles on Toril? Exandria? Even Krynn? Pass.

But if you communicate clearly you are going for a specific, more narrow setting/campaign, like Household or Brancalonia . . . I'd still encourage you to be open to player concepts, but yeah, maybe not a tortle, dragonborn, or tiefling. Or maybe so!

I'm running a LotR 5E setting right now, and I'd be leery if one of my players wanted to play a tortle or other species not in Tolkein's legendarium. But I'd be open to the pitch and we'd talk it out. The answer wouldn't be "no" but "maybe" until we've discussed it. I did let one of my players play a "wizard", an Istari. That's in the lore, of course, but not in the game. The player is using the standard druid class to model a nature-oriented Istari, similar to Radagast. It is messing with the power level of the game . . . but we're making it work and we're having fun. I could've just said "NO!", but I'm glad I was open to the concept.

In the context of this discussion, I don't think the rules system matters. D&D, Pathfinder, Blades, OSE, whatever . . . it's the setting, tone, and theme of the game that should dictate character options. But it's important, IMO, for the DM to be open-minded, focused on group fun rather than being precious about world-building, and most importantly, remember that it's all just a game!

There are no tortles in Middle-Earth . . . but there are talking otters and other strangeness. Maybe a talking turtle person wouldn't be all that disruptive to a LotR game after all . . .

 

[Thomas Shey]

My take would be, as a player, if I walked into Session Zero not knowing details about what the game will be like (like the game will be in a custom setting that deviates from the game's norm), than I haven't actually accepted the pitch yet.

Part of the pitch should absolutely be explaining what system you're in, what the general setting frame is, and what kind of house rules or deviations from the core rules are present.

If you have pages of campaign notes that will impact my character generation, presenting those notes needs to be part of the pitch.

I think there can be differences between what's called the "elevator pitch" and sufficient information to genuinely know what's a good idea to play or not. Among other things, the full campaign handout for a game can be a bit much for an elevator pitch.

 

[Bae'zel]

I've probably missed some of the back and forth over the past dozen or so pages, but . . .

If you invite me over to your D&D game and describe the world and campaign as standard D&D, perhaps in the Realms, Exandria, or a similar homebrew . . . yeah, I'm going to be irritated if you start banning character concepts seemingly arbitrarily, which is how this whole thread-drift argument started out. No tortles on Toril? Exandria? Even Krynn? Pass.

But if you communicate clearly you are going for a specific, more narrow setting/campaign, like Household or Brancalonia . . . I'd still encourage you to be open to player concepts, but yeah, maybe not a tortle, dragonborn, or tiefling. Or maybe so!

This is the internet after all, and extremes and hyperbole are rampant.

Yes, obviously if I was running a kitchen-sink fantasy game of D&D, in an established setting like Toril, I'd let anything go. Within reason. For example, I'm about to run an city-centric campaign of Baldur's Gate meets Lankhmar very soon and advised players NOT to make outdoorsy ranger or druid types unless they were "urban" reskins because they'd work better. Mind you, this was the campaign pitch that the PLAYERS gave me... and STILL I had someone want to make a Druid and a Barbarian (we worked it out, found out what they wanted and collaborated on an urban-focused alternative that scratches that itch).

But the back and forth was mostly about how utterly unfair and narrowminded it is when DMs ask players to stick within a particular campaign theme. It seems like published games get a free pass from this critique, but Homebrewed ones don't. Hence the "Witcher campaign in 5e banning Dragonborn and Tortles" idea creating indignation and accusations of creating "unfun". And arguing whether D&D can actually be a toolkit at all (ie, it is "meant" to be inclusive of all published options no matter what). What about the historical green books? Those don't cound apparently. And so on and so on.

Edit: I'd wager that most of us are far more open minded that this debate insinuates; that we'd all actually get along really well at a game table. But this is the internet and bad faith interpretation is the default.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Then what is your counter-proposal? There are only two aspects of being a tortle that matter. The attitude and outlook on life, the cultural differences is one. The mechanical benefits is another. I attempted to address both. If you don't like the image I generated, what imagery would be acceptable?

What if the visual imagery is the main interest? I mean, that may be a nonstarter to you, but I'd think you could understand "Being a physical humanoid turtle" as the interest point not being satisfied by any compromise that doesn't include that.

Seems like you can't answer that because you have no real counter, no real compromise. It's tortle or nothing.

It might well be that neither the outlook/cluture nor mechanical benefits are what are important to them. That still suggests potential compromises, its just that the one thing they can't compromise on is also the one thing you can't.

 

[Mecheon]

Seems like you can't answer that because you have no real counter, no real compromise. It's tortle or nothing.

See, I think you're coming at this the wrong way because I reckon people would compromise on that. You just haven't even budged an inch at your side though

If you told them "Yeah we don't have Tortles and their whole 'you die if you mate so all of them are inevitable orphans' but we do have turtle yaoguai who resemble turtle men" and that'd probably be fine (yaoguai being a general terms for monsters in China, especially anything that shows up in Journey to the West). Or the earlier comment on "Lizardman who's a bit turtle-y". Those aren't tortles but get across the turtle man idea. Don't have tabaxi in a setting but some other cat people? They're close enough

"You're a human cosplaying" is not really a compromise for anything. Telling someone they can't be an elf but have to instead wear fake elf ears isn't a compromise for playing as an elf

 

[AlViking]

What if the visual imagery is the main interest? I mean, that may be a nonstarter to you, but I'd think you could understand "Being a physical humanoid turtle" as the interest point not being satisfied by any compromise that doesn't include that.



It might well be that neither the outlook/cluture nor mechanical benefits are what are important to them. That still suggests potential compromises, its just that the one thing they can't compromise on is also the one thing you can't.

If you don't like my limits don't join my game. Sometimes there is no compromise.