Tiefling and half-orc should not be in the PHB

[MoxieFu]

So, the question is... Is the "Essence of D&D" that exact list of fantasy novels that a bunch of guys liked several decades ago, or is it the idea that D&D should include ideas from of a wide variety of works of contemporary fantasy? I think the latter is far more important. Why should D&D just stop changing and adapting and be mired in reliving the 70s? It would die if it did, and I'd be happy to see it die if it took that kind of short-sighted approach. I want a game that's relevant to me, not a game that solely appeals to the nostalgia of a time from before I was even born. Fortunately, I don't think it will take that approach, so I'll be happy to play the game for quite some time to come.

Because when the wheel has already been invented it cuts down a great deal on speculation what a wheel is in the first place.

People are speculating on how to "innovate" to solve problems that they perceive to exist. Many people do not have these problems because they already have a perfectly useful "wheel". Why declare that the wheel does not exist and then speculate how to create one?

D&Dnext is supposed to be designed to consolidate the editions, not drive them further apart. Understanding where the game came from will allow you to see this consolidation. Ignoring that will bring about more divergent change. That's going completely in the opposite direction the current designers have announced that they are going.

Right now the goal of the new edition is Consolidation.
If they succeed in that, then they can concentrate on true innovation and not change just for the sake of change.

 

[Sunseeker]

Because when the wheel has already been invented it cuts down a great deal on speculation what a wheel is in the first place.

That doesn't mean we haven't invented BETTER wheels since the dawn of time.

People are speculating on how to "innovate" to solve problems that they perceive to exist. Many people do not have these problems because they already have a perfectly useful "wheel". Why declare that the wheel does not exist and then speculate how to create one?

The "problem" here is one thing and one thing alone: people suggesting that their definition of D&D is the ONLY acceptable one.

D&Dnext is supposed to be designed to consolidate the editions, not drive them further apart. Understanding where the game came from will allow you to see this consolidation. Ignoring that will bring about more divergent change. That's going completely in the opposite direction the current designers have announced that they are going.

Understanding where the game came from is not the same as reverting to it's original form. Improvments have been made, content has been added. You cannot seriously expect them to just dump all that in favor or remaking OD&D.

Right now the goal of the new edition is Consolidation.
If they succeed in that, then they can concentrate on true innovation and not change just for the sake of change.

Who's changing anything? The only people talking about CHANGE are the people who want D&D to only have 4 races until Wizards deigns to release new ones. All the races most people are in support of were already previously included in the game.

 

[MoxieFu]

That doesn't mean we haven't invented BETTER wheels since the dawn of time.

The "problem" here is one thing and one thing alone: people suggesting that their definition of D&D is the ONLY acceptable one.


Understanding where the game came from is not the same as reverting to it's original form. Improvments have been made, content has been added. You cannot seriously expect them to just dump all that in favor or remaking OD&D.

Who's changing anything? The only people talking about CHANGE are the people who want D&D to only have 4 races until Wizards deigns to release new ones. All the races most people are in support of were already previously included in the game.

And all that wonderful "improvement" in 4e has brought us right where we are today. If all that improvement was so good why are we looking at a new edition of the game in record time? All the changes were NOT for the better and the edition failed. The facts speak for themselves, but you can't hear it if you refuse to listen.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Dear MoxieFu:

Your argument about the "feel of D&D" has truth to it. But if you phrase it as "only books on this list from the 70s" you are alienating yourself to 40 years of gamers.

My suggestion: please list some works from later periods - movies, books, TV, whatever - that you feel fits the same D&D feel that you prefer. You may also list works that you feel work against that feel, for contrast.

 

[Sunseeker]

And all that wonderful "improvement" in 4e has brought us right where we are today. If all that improvement was so good why are we looking at a new edition of the game in record time? All the changes were NOT for the better and the edition failed. The facts speak for themselves, but you can't hear it if you refuse to listen.

3e came out sooner after 2e than 2e came after 1e. 4e came out sooner than that. Wizards is in the job of making money, and the whips of their masters Hasbro are pushing them ever harder to justify their existence with more dollars. Long downtime between editions with minor supplementary content simply will not suffice any longer.

Your "evidence" that 4e was "bad" which is the reason for 5e is anecdotal at best and mostly personal opinion. 4e didn't fail by any margin, it brought in huge numbers of players to a genre that was dying. It may have "failed" by the standards of people who haven't bought a D&D book since 1985, but frankly, I doubt those people are any more inclined to buy 5e than they were to buy 4e.

EDIT: also, if your only purpose here is to bash 4e and claim 1e was the greatest wheel ever, I'd suggest against it.

 

[MoxieFu]

Dear MoxieFu:

Your argument about the "feel of D&D" has truth to it. But if you phrase it as "only books on this list from the 70s" you are alienating yourself to 40 years of gamers.

My suggestion: please list some works from later periods - movies, books, TV, whatever - that you feel fits the same D&D feel that you prefer. You may also list works that you feel work against that feel, for contrast.

Where are you getting these words from that you quote me as saying?

Methinks you are putting words in my mouth. Someone had stated upthread this:

"I think it is fair to say that tieflings aren't standard fantasy. Pick up most fantasy novels and you pretty consistently run into variants on dwarves, elves, orcs, halfings, and gnomes."

Then someone else asked this:

"Which "most fantasy novels" are you talking about? Because I don't think the majority of fantasy novels out thre are anything like this."

My original quote was in answer to that. Now I know that many novels have been written since then, but I'll be willing to bet that any that mention "tiefling" was written after the publication of the Planescape Setting. I would also double down on the wager that the novel would be set in the Planescape setting, such as Pages of Pain, which I do own and have read.

So yes, I have read a new book or two in the last 40 years.

 

[Sunseeker]

"I think it is fair to say that tieflings aren't standard fantasy. Pick up most fantasy novels and you pretty consistently run into variants on dwarves, elves, orcs, halfings, and gnomes."

In response to both you and them, who plays D&D for "standard" fantasy? I don't play D&D for "standard" fantasy, "standard" adventures or anything "standard" at all. I play D&D to have fun, which includes all sorts of things from hobbits to half-dragons. Why do you feel your level of fun is diminished through allowing me to have my fun?

My original quote was in answer to that. Now I know that many novels have been written since then, but I'll be willing to bet that any that mention "tiefling" was written after the publication of the Planescape Setting. I would also double down on the wager that the novel would be set in the Planescape setting, such as Pages of Pain, which I do own and have read.

Probably because tiefling is one of the few things that Wizards has been able to hold copyright over. I honestly can't think of a book which includes them(even in a very cursory way) that isn't published under the D&D license. Even so, half-demon creatures exist in a wide variety of mythical lore, even if they're not explicitly called "tieflings". Unlike Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and so on, tiefling was largely created by Wizards.

 

[MoxieFu]

3e came out sooner after 2e than 2e came after 1e. 4e came out sooner than that. Wizards is in the job of making money, and the whips of their masters Hasbro are pushing them ever harder to justify their existence with more dollars. Long downtime between editions with minor supplementary content simply will not suffice any longer.

Your "evidence" that 4e was "bad" which is the reason for 5e is anecdotal at best and mostly personal opinion. 4e didn't fail by any margin, it brought in huge numbers of players to a genre that was dying. It may have "failed" by the standards of people who haven't bought a D&D book since 1985, but frankly, I doubt those people are any more inclined to buy 5e than they were to buy 4e.

EDIT: also, if your only purpose here is to bash 4e and claim 1e was the greatest wheel ever, I'd suggest against it.

Actually I began playing 1e in 1980. Eventually trying to houserule 1e into something I was satisfied nearly drove me to madness. I was relieved when 2e came out but it didn't fix many of the things I didn't like with 1e, plus sanitizing the game for Mothers Against D&D was a colossal cop-out. I liked the changes that 3e made to the game, but then they went and added tons of superstructure to the game I DIDN'T like.

Pathfinder came out with their "fixes" to 3.X but went in the direction of increasing the complexity when I was hoping for decreasing it. I love Paizo as a company, but their rules system just didn't appeal to me. 4e was never a game I could warm up to. It may be an excellent miniatures Skirmish game, but it threw out way too much of the things I liked in ALL previous editions. I do like the rule on critical hits though, so there is that. Castles & Crusades came the closest to "being D&D to me" so that was what I went with. But, since it didn't have the D&D logo on it, it never received much traction in the gaming world. The publisher's habits of poor editing didn't help either.

5E now comes along with a stated goal of creating a simpler, modular core that can be extended with expansions. So far this sounds like a wonderful design philosophy. The designers are also making a huge effort to promote the game in terms that are as inclusive as possible. I absolutely applaud this.

What they have said gives me more hope that 5e will be the best version of D&D that I have ever laid eyes on, even games that don't have those three symbols on the box. Now when the playtest rules come out I may find myself to be completely wrong but I don't think so. I really think I'll like at least 90% of the game and if they get that close I will be elated.

When the final rules are published I would love to be playing and running actual D&D again. At least at this point I have hope.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Where are you getting these words from that you quote me as saying?

You are the one who brought up Appendix N. That suggests that you have a list of books you consider "D&D Feel". But the list you gave us - Appendix N - is extremely dated. All I did was suggest that you include in the discussion some more current materials that you think would receive your "D&D Feel" stamp of approval.

If, on the other hand, your intent is just to troll the thread, then it would not be necessary for you to actually contribute to the discussion.

 

[Kynn]

Okay, so the claim was made that:

Pick up most fantasy novels and you pretty consistently run into variants on dwarves, elves, orcs, halfings, and gnomes.

I objected, because I believe it's provably true that most fantasy novels don't consist of "dwarves, elves, orcs, halflings, and gnomes" and their variants.

Apparently, that's controversial, as with MoxieFu's response to look at:

Get a copy of the Dungeon Masters Guide, first edition.
Turn to Appendix N
Pick any novel
Enjoy

And if anybody is still looking for the "Essence" of D&D? It's here.

Okay, so let's see, I'll pick any novel listed there. Poul Anderson's "Three Hearts and Three Lions is the first one listed. Which of those races exist there? Dwarves and elves perhaps, but orcs and halfings?

The last on the list is Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series. Are there orcs, dwarves, hobbits, elves, and gnomes in Amber as the primary races?

Edgar Rice Burroughs is listed. Did his Pellucidar, Venus, and Mars series feature dwarves, elves, gnomes, and orcs?

H.P. Lovecraft?

R.E. Howard?

Michael Moorcock?

Andre Norton?

Fred Saberhagen?

Jack Vance?

In fact, the vast majority of authors and books listed in Appendix N do not have the standard AD&D races in their works. A small minority (including Tolkien) have subsets of the standard AD&D races (e.g., JRRT has no gnomes), but it's far different from saying that if you pick up any Moorcock, Vance, or Howard novel, you'll see dwarves, elves, halflings, gnomes, and orcs.