The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse: Ideas you think D&D's better without

[Libertad]

What popular game mechanics, tropes, and ideas do you believe are unnecessary or otherwise outdated?

I'd say the Law/Chaos axis of alignment. We can keep Good and Evil, the other part is just too prone to folly.

Also, the "one cleric, one deity" of pseudo-monotheism. Lots of polytheists draw inspiration from many gods of the pantheon. This should be a more common option.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

All of them. That said, it's a toolbox, not a straightjacket. Maybe I want some Elric-influenced Law v. Chaos game next time out or get inspired to play with some sacred cow I normally am tired of (like the drow, who I've been dealing with since '79).

That said, I like campaigns best with focus and subtraction, so I'm unlikely to ever use everything available.

 

[Shemeska]

The idea that D&D as a whole has sacred cows that deserve to be slaughtered for no reason other than change for changes sake.

That sort of design should be limited to campaign-specific tweaks, and rarely or never undertaken for a campaign setting that existed prior to sending whatever particular cow to the slaughter.

 

[billd91]

PC races that are too small. Let 'em be bigger than 3 feet tall.

Damage caps on spells - made sense for 2e but became instantly unnecessary with the shift to 3e.

 

[the Jester]

First, can you unformat your text color? Black-on-black is... difficult.

Thanks!

But to answer your question, I'd like to do away with the coupling of magic items to character level (hurray, it's happening in 5e!). Also with the expectation that high and low level pcs never adventure together; I would like it to be fun to run (or play) a game where the party is levels 1, 1, 1, 2 and 12.

 

[Argyle King]

The d20.

 

[Libertad]

First, can you unformat your text color? Black-on-black is... difficult.

Thanks!

But to answer your question, I'd like to do away with the coupling of magic items to character level (hurray, it's happening in 5e!). Also with the expectation that high and low level pcs never adventure together; I would like it to be fun to run (or play) a game where the party is levels 1, 1, 1, 2 and 12.

Is this quote directed at me? I'm looking at my OP, and it doesn't look that way to me.

 

[Raith5]

I really dont like the idea that spells like Charm has to be 1st, Levitation has to 2nd, fireball, fly etc have to be 3rd level because that was the set level in Basic D&D. I wish the level of spells was rethought without reference to questions of legacy. Fly in particular should be a higher level spell.

 

[Manabarbs]

Conventional notions about what different scores in abilities represent maybe? In many cases, there's a pretty severe disconnect between how creatures with particular intelligence or charisma scores are presented and what the actual mechanical effect of those scores are. You could come at this from either side, really; you could adjust the resolution mechanics so that somebody with 6 int is actually perceptually dumber than somebody with 13 int, or you could redefine what the numbers signify. I think it's also important to create more space between "human average" and "can't use the ability at all"; a -5 penalty isn't enough gradation to even capture the range of basically normal human intelligence, much less the intelligence of various not-so-bright monster races, beasts, etc. (Alternately, you could make it so that zero isn't the floor, or do away with scores entirely and just use modifiers.)

 

[Storminator]

Alignment

XP

Magic items slots

Multiclassing

PS