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

[Yaarel]

It's not typically up to the DM. The players are the ones who find ways to converse with or ally with the creatures.

No. ... That stuff needs to be there BEFORE they encounter the monster, so it can be in play immediately when needed, and since I don't know which monsters I will need stuff for, I'm not going to spend the time to do it for every single monster in advance. That's WotC's job.

Explain?

Are you saying that every creature encountered needs to have a statblock for a unique individual?

 

[Belen]

I'm just glad that the game and culture is moving towards the stuff I like more than the stuff you like that's all.

Welcome to your corporate overlords.

I disagree about the game culture. I'd be willing to bet the same arguments will be had in 20 years. The hobby has been fairly cyclical and the culture changes all the time.

Or the game will just be dead in favor of VR run by AI.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

So? Novella length backstories are maligned too and the old-fashioned story railroad is also a creative endeavour that I don't see much pushback for being demonized.

I don't think you're wrong. But long backstories or railroading being criticized is situational, not structural. The concern here is about denying DMs the ability to set meaningful narrative or worldbuilding boundaries, which has broader implications for creativity in the hobby.

If the argument was simply that "I like settings that allow turtlemen" or "The community prefers settings with turtlemen," then I think your analogy applies. But in this case, the argument seems to be that "any setting that has a restriction related to tone, narrative, or world coherence should be demonized." That is more akin to saying "Player backstories should be demonized." It is a complete dismissal of a creative endeavor.

I think when viewed through the lens of the argument being presented, the difference becomes clear.

 

[gban007]

I don't think in all the years of D&D I've really seen a player become upset with another players character like that. Because the character was a jerk maybe, but not because the character was a specific species. And not to the point the player is affected. I've seen racist PCs (dwarves who hate elves) but not player whose fun is ruined. That's the equivalent of someone getting upset there's a kosher dish at the party to the point that they think it being there taints the whole party.

What if the same player objected to an allowed option? Someone who won't adventure with an assassin or necromancer or warlock? Does the offending player have to lose his character because the other players fun is ruined?

I have had a couple of cases where I've ended up having to step in, or been involved in as a player, around player choices impacting other players. Real examples include:

Player creating a glas cannon type striker in 4e, but then always charging up into Frontline trying to tank attacks, which with his build led to frequently going unconscious and needing to soak up a lot of healing, while getting in way of defenders being able to do what they want to do, causing a lot of aggravation amongst the players.

Someone having a character impacted by lyncanthropy, having fun working through implications of that, until another players character dies and they decide their next character must be a lyncanthrope hunting character, and ended up with one character hunting the other until one left the party. Second player had lots of fun, but first was upset.

A player built a Druid that was very pro animal life (to point that let a displacer beast go as did poorly enough on identification to believe it was a natural beast). Went fine in party, until another player decided to bring in a character that wanted to kill any animals encountered, and first player ended up retiring character as was no longer enjoying it.

EDIT - as an addendum, two of the above players are still in group, just the group works better at character creation at any time (not just session zero) to ensure that they are considering what other players already have in play. Player who built the striker no longer is, as was one example of many where seemed to really want to go for bad builds (low intelligence wizards, berserker barbarian who frequently ended up attacking the party) that detracted from the enjoyment of other players, even if DM had no problem. Noting this was in 3e and 4e days, with the ever escalating d20 modifiers where you could build very unbalanced characters. I think 5e would have mitigated a chunk of this with bounded accuracy and easier general healing, but came too late.

 

[Minigiant]

The HR books and the 2E settings come from an older model of D&D, where the game was considered in part a toolkit for running various types of fantasy games. At least one prolific poster on this thread has criticized this as a bad model for D&D, but I think it can be safely said at least that the current dominant model from WotC is that D&D is its own thing, and that settings should be tweaked to reflect D&D, rather than vice versa. Hence the disconnect between "using D&D to play in a DM's world" and "playing D&D because we want to play D&D specifically, with all that that entails."

The big change is what the definition of toolkit became.

The older versions of D and D was a hodgepodge of multiple genres, which created disconnect when your rules hit a genre that you're not going for. For example, the traps might be sort in sorcery. But you are going for heroic fantasy. So you will use the toolkit of the game to import rules to take away the sort and sorcery traps out. And replace it with heroic complex traps..

In fourth edition and fifth edition, instead of making the game much of a hodgepodge, it focused on one genre and said, you add additional rule to it, to push it from that genre of fantasy into another genre. This focus DND into its own real IP mechanically..

Or in easy terms, old DND was designed to not work. But be easy to fix. It had missing parts, but you can use tools to get it to work.

However, in new DND the design was to make it work outside of the box for that style. Especially in 2024 D and D where it was designed at the end of box style had a broad approach to catch multiple types of game while still maintaining the true core of the IP..

 

[Maxperson]

Perfect, this beheaded corpse was always what I wanted D&D to become!

Another response that isn't really understandable. What corpse are you talking about? I didn't mention a corpse.

 

[Remathilis]

I have had a couple of cases where I've ended up having to step in, or been involved in as a player, around player choices impacting other players. Real examples include:

Player creating a glas cannon type striker in 4e, but then always charging up into Frontline trying to tank attacks, which with his build led to frequently going unconscious and needing to soak up a lot of healing, while getting in way of defenders being able to do what they want to do, causing a lot of aggravation amongst the players.

So the players were mad his character was ineffective? I guess its true that its Rude to Suck at WoW, but that highlights a certain mentality. If, for example, the 4e play had rolled ability scores and rolled poorly (like, nothing above a 14) would it be fair to make him re-roll until he was acceptable? I mean, this is the exact reason I opted for point buy over rolled scores, but (as always) I seem to be the minority of trying to even out such experiences.

Someone having a character impacted by lyncanthropy, having fun working through implications of that, until another players character dies and they decide their next character must be a lyncanthrope hunting character, and ended up with one character hunting the other until one left the party. Second player had lots of fun, but first was upset.

Well yeah, the second player basically made a character designed to grief the first. That's a bad player and the second should be booted for doing it.

A player built a Druid that was very pro animal life (to point that let a displacer beast go as did poorly enough on identification to believe it was a natural beast). Went fine in party, until another player decided to bring in a character that wanted to kill any animals encountered, and first player ended up retiring character as was no longer enjoying it.

Ditto with the above. Griefing is never acceptable.

EDIT - as an addendum, two of the above players are still in group, just the group works better at character creation at any time (not just session zero) to ensure that they are considering what other players already have in play. Player who built the striker no longer is, as was one example of many where seemed to really want to go for bad builds (low intelligence wizards, berserker barbarian who frequently ended up attacking the party) that detracted from the enjoyment of other players, even if DM had no problem. Noting this was in 3e and 4e days, with the ever escalating d20 modifiers where you could build very unbalanced characters. I think 5e would have mitigated a chunk of this with bounded accuracy and easier general healing, but came too late.

So what you're telling me is bad players ruin the fun for everyone. Unless you're suggesting a player who suddenly dislikes my tortle is justified for griefing me.

 

[Maxperson]

Explain?

Are you saying that every creature encountered needs to have a statblock for a unique individual?

No. I'm saying that many of them would have abilities that fall outside of combat or optimal combat, but which are usable and should be present for roleplaying.

A unique individual is different.

I will give an example from the 5e MM since I don't have the 5.5e one. The Pixie has innate spellcasting. On the list of spells is Detect Evil and Good. This is not of much, if any worth in combat vs. PCs, but it is an ability that could come in handy if the PCs make a Pixie ally. Some folks are asking that all abilities that aren't combat optimal combat abilities be stricken from the stat block. Those sorts of abilities need to be there. They can be marked non-combat or even moved to a different area on the page.

 

[Maxperson]

Well yeah, the second player basically made a character designed to grief the first. That's a bad player and the second should be booted for doing it.

Ditto with the above. Griefing is never acceptable.

Yeah. I'm dumbfounded that the DMs would even have allowed those things to happen.

 

[gban007]

So the players were mad his character was ineffective? I guess its true that its Rude to Suck at WoW, but that highlights a certain mentality. If, for example, the 4e play had rolled ability scores and rolled poorly (like, nothing above a 14) would it be fair to make him re-roll until he was acceptable? I mean, this is the exact reason I opted for point buy over rolled scores, but (as always) I seem to be the minority of trying to even out such experiences.

Well yeah, the second player basically made a character designed to grief the first. That's a bad player and the second should be booted for doing it.

Ditto with the above. Griefing is never acceptable.

So what you're telling me is bad players ruin the fun for everyone. Unless you're suggesting a player who suddenly dislikes my tortle is justified for griefing me.

We now use standard array to smooth some things out. But I think there can be an element of it is rude to suck in dnd, if player is deliberately building sub optimal (which this person was, the party wasnt a min / maxing one by any means, but playing a cleric and putting highest stats in intelligence and dex, sacrificing wisdom to do so can have impacts) such that TPKs were more frequent, any healer based character was either having to spend all spells getting the other players character back up all the time, or deal with that player complaining as to why no one is healing him, other characters having to build their spell selection or characters around the fact that the other player is likely to attack them every other combat does start impacting on their enjoyment of the game.

Re the other one, the player/s genuinely didnt seem to be aiming to be griefing, just didn't think theough impact of how playing what they wanted impacted on others.

E.g. if someone had built a ranger with life long hatred of Tortles, favored enemy Tortle, who had spent some levels trying to attack every Tortle he sees, would you consider it griefing to then join the party as a Tortle character?