D&D 5E Too many cooks (a DnDN retrospective)

[timASW]

Don't you think those two families would have some keen insight into each others' existence, heritage, legacy that other families who have generically endured a "classic" war would not possess? And given the dynamics, don't you think they would likely share more than just kindred spirits...there would assuredly be a lot of tension that you wouldn't find if the circumstances were dissimilar or you just compared two "generic" war families?

In a word? No. Assuming the default background for those races that stuff happened literally thousands of years ago. Current members of either race's only connection to it would be family stories and extremely old books. Ones which would likely have been replaced in common tellings by much more recent, important happenings.

Much like Americans descended from English people, who happened to have ancestors who fought in the civil war dont talk about the war of the roses, or the hundreds years war. And they dont really talk about the civil war either. They talk about Iraq, or Vietnam, very occasionally WW2.

Actually a more accurate comparison of the length of time involved would be a bunch of southerners sitting around obsessing over the Roman occupation of Britain. And how much they have in common with all the english over it.

Maybe there are actual people out there, you know...fellow gamers, who do not share your playstyle and genre preferences who are actually sincere? Is that not a possibility?

I would like you to take your laptop into the bathroom, look in the mirror and then read that sentence out loud.

 

[timASW]

Perhaps you didn't notice, but technoextreme was banned for uncivil behavior and name calling. That doesn't give you the opportunity to return their rudeness with your own. If someone isn't worth talking to, just. don't. talk to them. Rule #1 is "Keep It Civil." Please do so going forward.

Actually yeah, i hit respond before getting to that part of the last page. So I'll just delete that post..

 

[Obryn]

I would like you to take your laptop into the bathroom, look in the mirror and then read that sentence out loud.

He's not the one assuming that a player who wants a warforged or a tiefling is doing so in bad faith, though.

-O

 

[timASW]

He's not the one assuming that a player who wants a warforged or a tiefling is doing so in bad faith, though.

-O

no, he's the one saying that a player in a low magic, tolkeinesque setting should be able to say....

"i want a part demon wizard who uses an alternate magic system and I dont care if theres no demons as such here or if the entire world is made with wizards being vancian. I want what I want and you should let me do it"

And the DM should say yes.

And many of us say NO. No we should not. And that is just as right, just as fair, and just as D&D as saying yes. Maybe moreso when you consider the 40 year history of D&D

 

[Manbearcat]

My game has a tiefling PC, a paladin of the Raven Queen. He deals death to anyone who asks for it (and plenty who don't), broods on the fate of his dead people and their civilisation, and gets on well with duergar (although suspects that they haven't fully internalised the consequences of their own people's dealing with devils).

In a word? No. Assuming the default background for those races that stuff happened literally thousands of years ago. Current members of either race's only connection to it would be family stories and extremely old books. Ones which would likely have been replaced in common tellings by much more recent, important happenings.

Much like Americans descended from English people, who happened to have ancestors who fought in the civil war dont talk about the war of the roses, or the hundreds years war. And they dont really talk about the civil war either. They talk about Iraq, or Vietnam, very occasionally WW2.

Actually a more accurate comparison of the length of time involved would be a bunch of southerners sitting around obsessing over the Roman occupation of Britain. And how much they have in common with all the english over it.

My post was attempting to illuminate how Tieflings and Duergar share a unique (to all the races) biological and cultural history; their infernal bloodlines and fiendish pacts. With this comes irrevocable stigma from the greater world culture. Given that their infernal heritage is visible as well as intangible (through culture and history), no manner of years will undo this stigma, not 200 nor 2000 nor 10000 (unless it is bred out or a recessive trait miracle mutates it out over generations...but seeing as that hasn't happened in 10000 years and we're still talking about Tiefling and Duergar...I'm pretty sure we need not worry about comparing 2000 year old societies to them...age is irrelevant.).

Along the way, Tiefling society and culture collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and its remnants scattered to the wind, some ashamed, some embittered, some just disenfranchised...but with no focused ethos.

vs

Meanwhile, the Duergar culture ossified further and deeper until it became the perfect example of a proud, militant society, steadfastly and unashamedly devoted to rigid veneration of the most evil and powerful of devils - Asmodeus himself.


A Confederate loyalist's descendents, conflicted over the family's past but unable to escape the reality of that history...and the inescapable notoriety and stigma it carries.

vs

A Confederate loyalist's descendents, unabashedly anti-Yankee Nation to this day, flying the Army of Northern Virgina's flag proudly in their front yard, still representing that ethos and willing to give the what-for to anyone who looks at them cross-eyed.


It doesn't matter what people "talk about" or "how long ago stuff occurred". I'm not sure why you brought that about. We were talking about shared history and how that shared history does, or does not (your position, provide insight into the other party exclusive to those that share that history. You said that Tieflings and Duergar wouldn't possess unique insight into the internal goings-ons of each members' race. You said that pemerton's character could have been a human and it would have worked just as well. As such, your position was disputing both our contentions (that it was a thematic choice) and could only be a "munchkin choice" for "kewl powerz", as you put it. I dispute that and attempted to display my reasoning; They share infernal bloodlines, a cultural history of fiendish pacts, and visible, physical marking from their fiendish heritage which indelibly marks them and brings stigma from the greater culture...and with it the natural kinship possessed by a universally maligned people (justly or unjustly).

You then went somewhere else with this last post. Of which I can't make heads or tails of.

 

[Manbearcat]

no, he's the one saying that a player in a low magic, tolkeinesque setting should be able to say....

"i want a part demon wizard who uses an alternate magic system and I dont care if theres no demons as such here or if the entire world is made with wizards being vancian. I want what I want and you should let me do it"

And the DM should say yes.

And many of us say NO. No we should not. And that is just as right, just as fair, and just as D&D as saying yes. Maybe moreso when you consider the 40 year history of D&D

What? Are you saying I've said that "The DM should say yes?" What in the world are you talking about? I've never said anything of the like. I outlined how my gaming table works and said it is just as legitimate as any other playstyle...responding to ATTACKS against it. In no way did I say that you should play like me or Hussar, or pemerton, Balesir or anyone else. I never said that a DM must say yes to whatever.

I did the same thing I've always done on here. Defended and advocated for a playstyle's LEGITIMACY. I've never, not once, told someone that their playstyle is illegitimate or that they're having "badwrongfun" or "playing wrong" or cynically accused them of bad faith in their "gumdrop elf playing" or whatever it is that KM always says. What in the world are you talking about? I don't even know that Hussar or pemerton or anyone else has accused you of "badwrongfun" or "playing wrong" or "bad faith". They're just defending their playstyle from attacks on its legitimacy. Are they not allowed to do that? Am I not? Is this some sort of inverted reality whereby responding to attacks against our playstyle is somehow attacking someone else's playstyle?

Huh?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

dialgo and his friends playing d02 from the wood-grain box with d6's and beers and no Thief class are playing D&D. Not easymode D&D, not beginner's D&D, not introductory D&D, not basic D&D, but actual D&D. Just the same as those dudes playing a highly customized d20 campaign featuring Trailblazer and several genre-clone rules kludged into a complete whole. I don't think the simple stuff needs to be separated out. You don't NEED complexity to play real and true and actual D&D. Some complexity may be desirable for dorks like us on ENWorld who spend way too much time thinking about our imaginary gumdrop elves, but the dude who plays the OD&D fighting-man and loves it isn't playing a different version of the game, she's just playing in a particular style.

But that's a bit of a soapbox, and, again, I'm just speculating.

I think it is also inverted from what I was talking about. I wasn't advocating necessarily separating the simple stuff out--though that is of course yet another way to handle the problem. (DEFCON1 had a solution too. We are already up to five options in a handful of posts. I'm telling you getting to 20 is easy. ) Rather, I'm looking at the whole picture of all the elements developed in tandem, and facing up to the natural complexity that results from that course of design. I don't think everyone is so facing it squarely, because we keep seeing all these calls to "Just throw out B-H and leave it A in the default, core, basic rules, then add in B-H elsewhere, later, as advanced, etc."

That's not how you best manage complexity for everyone--by shunting off some little piece of it and pretending that because by so shunting you made it easier for one group, you've maximized ease of use for everyone. What you've done instead is divided us yet again, between those that have their usability concerns catered to versus those that are more or less second-class or even ignored.

Look at the parallel problem in the early 4E presentation, with similar predictable results. Problem--they want powers to be simple to pick. Solution--make every class have its own power list and divide them up by level. Only, now making it easy to pick your powers for every class means that you get a handful of classe--and need to leave out some of the staples--and this doesn't get any better as you introduce new classes later, as each one takes a lot of space and time. (You also get a lot of filler powers, but that's another problem from the same cause, not a complexity issue.) Overall result, WotC realizes at some point that it was a bad design choice, but now they are stuck. Meanwhile, they've got people ticked off at launch because no druid or bard (though the bard being worth waiting for gained them some ground back here).

Very rapidly, the game is going to become complex. It happened in AD&D. It sort of happened in BECMI. It has happened in every version since, in one way or another. Most people will use a subset of Next, in part to handle the complexity but also for reasons of personal preference, flavor of a campaign, experimentation, etc. For all of these reasons, the subset will vary wildly. To manage the total complexity, the selection of options used at a given table should be somewhat independent of the means of communicating each element (class, spell, etc.)

 

[Obryn]

no, he's the one saying that a player in a low magic, tolkeinesque setting should be able to say....

"i want a part demon wizard who uses an alternate magic system and I dont care if theres no demons as such here or if the entire world is made with wizards being vancian. I want what I want and you should let me do it"

And the DM should say yes.

And many of us say NO. No we should not. And that is just as right, just as fair, and just as D&D as saying yes. Maybe moreso when you consider the 40 year history of D&D

Wait, what? You called them munchkins.

And I think you're overlooking the 40-year history of D&D, frankly. We're talking about a game where a bunch of dudes sat around and thought up stuff they thought would be fun. So we ended up with rust monsters, gelatinous cubes, baby balrog player characters, PCs named Erac's Cousin, Bigby, Rigby, Digby, etc. We ended up with entire adventures based in a crashed spaceship with laser guns.

So I disagree - if you shoot down the wahoo, you're the one who's ignoring the 40-year history of D&D.

-O

 

[pemerton]

Is this some sort of inverted reality whereby responding to attacks against our playstyle is somehow attacking someone else's playstyle?

Get with the program! We're meant to go and read sentences to ourselves in mirrors until we acknowledge that we're whiny munchkins who don't know how to play RPGs!

 

[Manbearcat]

Get with the program! We're meant to go and read sentences to ourselves in mirrors until we acknowledge that we're whiny munchkins who don't know how to play RPGs!

I am Manbearcat of Enworld and am of sound mind. I am a whiny munchkin and I don't know how to play RPGs!

Now if I can just remember that the next time I consider advocating for my/our playstyle!