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

[SkidAce]

I think I might change my title to "Atypical Grognard".

 

[Mecheon]

So if I drop a specific species, it's worth even less of a fuss since Wizards has devalued the choice since Tashas anyway???

Agreed!

If you drop a specific species, you're potentially taking out all of the flavour from what someone wanted to roll. Because its a flavour option at the end of the day even if it has no gameplay difference, and that can absolutely mean the entire world for someone

So they'll probably just. Not join your game. And if they have someone else who was bringing them along or are friends with them? They'll probably drop it, too.

Mind if its announced earlier then I'd just have. Not joined your game. At all. Because why should I bother? Man has all of the wonders of the game at his fingertips and decides to stick to the most boring, plain options. Not even vanilla, more like the milk-flavoured 'ice confectionery' option at the supermarket that sorely wishes it was actually vanilla

 

[Belen]

If you drop a specific species, you're potentially taking out all of the flavour from what someone wanted to roll. Because its a flavour option at the end of the day even if it has no gameplay difference, and that can absolutely mean the entire world for someone

So they'll probably just. Not join your game. And if they have someone else who was bringing them along or are friends with them? They'll probably drop it, too.

Mind if it’s announced earlier then I'd just have. Not joined your game. At all. Because why should I bother? Man has all of the wonders of the game at his fingertips and decides to stick to the most boring, plain options. Not even vanilla, more like the milk-flavoured 'ice confectionery' option at the supermarket that sorely wishes it was actually vanilla

I find your posting confusing. So you’re saying that any species restrictions at all turns you off from a game. The DM could provide 20 options but that is not good enough?

It’s cool if you walk. It suggests we would not mesh well together and I’d prefer someone choose not to play than cause issues in game.

 

[Scribe]

If you drop a specific species, you're potentially taking out all of the flavour from what someone wanted to roll. Because its a flavour option at the end of the day even if it has no gameplay difference, and that can absolutely mean the entire world for someone

So they'll probably just. Not join your game. And if they have someone else who was bringing them along or are friends with them? They'll probably drop it, too.

Mind if its announced earlier then I'd just have. Not joined your game. At all. Because why should I bother? Man has all of the wonders of the game at his fingertips and decides to stick to the most boring, plain options. Not even vanilla, more like the milk-flavoured 'ice confectionery' option at the supermarket that sorely wishes it was actually vanilla

Right, so one species option removed, nevermind which one, JUST ONE, is enough to turn the wide and deep (lol no) tapestry of D&D into flavourless milk-flavoured watery paste.

Right.

 

[SableWyvern]

I have to say, I find it interesting how many people seem to consider a wide range of class and race options to be so essential to fun. I can certainly understand liking the idea of a big range of choices sometimes but the idea that it's necessary every game, and that a lack of class and race options (or, in some cases, any curation at all by the GM) is considered some huge red flag that says the GM is probably lacking in many areas is a really alien idea to me (and an entirely untenable position when taken to the extreme position that some posters in this thread are doing).

I've run games where the only guidelines I gave to players were that their characters would be powerful figures in a fantasy world, in service to the king, and that they all needed to use or be magical in some way. Within those very loose guidelines, they could come up with anything they wanted. We ended up with a shape-changing dragon swordmaster, an intelligent magical sword, a character who could control and manipulate metal, and others I don't recall off-hand. On the other hand, if I ever get around to running Al Qadim, it will be with humans only, because when I selected it as a setting, I was looking for an Arabian Nights style game, not a D&D-flavoured Arabian Nights game, and I used the existing material as the framework to get me to where I wanted to go.

I'll of course work with players as much as possible, but in order to present a coherent world, it helps if there is single guiding authority, and my players trust me to be that. In my current game, I saw that one of my players was interested in dream magic and I offered them options to modify their chosen profession to make this easier -- they didn't even need to ask, I was simply able to see what they were heading towards and I understood the system well enough to see how we could better make this happen.

Conversely, in an X-Com game, I had a player suggest playing an alien defector. After careful consideration, I couldn't see a way to make that work plausibly within the context of the game, and said no. In the end, that player chose not to play at all -- not because the alien idea was rejected, but because, on reflection, they realised the entire premise wasn't that interesting to them and gaming in general wasn't high on their priority list at the time. (It's worth noting that no one was offended or upset here, we just wanted different things at the time. That player is back now, and has been entirely invested in our last few campaigns.)

When I'm prepping a campaign, the idea of aiming for some fixed number of race/class combos doesn't really occur to me -- I will include what makes sense based on the game idea I have in mind. Generally speaking, if a game has a lot of classes, I'm happy to include as many as I can, but I have no hesitation to remove something if it doesn't make sense or I feel it will be too much work to justify it within the context of the setting.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong for wanting a heap of options. People like what they like and, when they're participating in a leisure activity, they shouldn't put up with things they don't enjoy. I just find it strange that curation by the GM that results in a net reduction in class/race options is a complete dealbreaker for so many people. But perhaps this is just a variant of the whole "single game" vs "many games" dichotomy. Some people always want their games to have this minimum number of starting build options, while others are happy to try all sorts of different starting premises, some broad and others narrow.

That said, I know there are some cases where "I want lots of options" really means, "I have a limited range of characters I'm willing to play, and if the the GM is curating their setting, it increases the chance I don't get to play one of those characters." That's something I can at least understand intellectually, even if it seems a bit bland for long-term play, to me.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Right, so one species option removed, nevermind which one, JUST ONE, is enough to turn the wide and deep (lol no) tapestry of D&D into flavourless milk-flavoured watery paste.

Right.

It's why D&D 2024 is the most flavourless edition yet! (no half-orcs or half-elves).

 

[saviirkad]

I think what this thread is ultimately teaching me is that monsters knew what they were doing in 2014, but in 2024 the monsters can only respond to players using the worst faith possible interpretation of what they are saying and doing, never once actually reacting to what is being said or done, and that's okay, it's actually balanced because the players are going to do the exact same thing.

 

[Scribe]

It's why D&D 2024 is the most flavourless edition yet! (no half-orcs or half-elves).

Actually now that you mention it, with all the sanding down the grit, adding padding and bumpers to any potential corner?

 

[Minigiant]

Your kinda demonstrating my point⚝ by stretching so hard to justify banning !FR stuff no big deal. I've never once heard such claims about tashas content to the point where it's practically considered default must accept core rules. Not only that... Instead of giving us new artificer subclasses in TCOE wotc took people at their word when they said artificers were banned because they aren't in FR, wotc republished the original artificer subclasses alongside a blurb talking about artificers in FR Greyhawk & Mystara. At the time the eberron community's frustration over a mere reprint rather than new stuff was parried away with a comment about how it was done to make it more setting neutral & accessible.

Edit: I don't really care that it's regularly banned. The hollow excuse trying to justify it being repeated so often that wotc reprints content to feed it rather than printing new content does though.

Artificer isn't in the free Basic Rules in 2014 nor 2024.

Artificer isn't in the PHB in 2014 or 2024.

It costs an additional book to get access to any of it.