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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6235645" data-attributes="member: 2067">(those of you tired of my droning on about this topic can skip to the next quote. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />)One of the papers I keep going on about is <a href="http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sites/decisionsciences/files/files/Defaults_and_Donation_Decisions_-_Transplantation.pdf" target="_blank">this Columbia University study</a>. The meat of the thing is organ donation, where the form people fills out either presumes consent (ie, is "opt-out") or requires explicit consent (ie, is "opt-in"). Figure 2 in that paper tells, graphically, what the consequences of assuming a default is. The point here is that it doesn't matter if people can choose otherwise or not: the default effect means that most people won't choose other than the default.Since they do it when the stakes are much higher and the decision is much easier (organs save people's lives, and it's literally a box on a form), I don't see much reason to believe they won't do it when the stakes are this low. In a D&D 5e with, say, a default cosmology, I imagine it will have this effect: most people won't make their own cosmology. They'll gravitate strongly toward the default. For me, that's pretty bad. I'm a lover of diversity, and a believer in the power and authority of every individual D&D group to tell the perfect story for themselves. If some DM somewhere doesn't make their own version of Hell and their own pathway between that and some Heaven because the game defaults to One True Cosmology, that's a loss for the game as a whole. If WotC publishes a new setting that has to fit into the existing schema rather than having its own unique multiverse at its disposal, that's a loss for the brand, for the game, and for everyone who picks up the book. If a table I join in the next 5-10 years has a DM who feels like making a new idea for the elemental planes is too much effort, that's a direct injury to my own game experience. If I can't get a 5e book that helps me design my own cosmologies for my own purposes because WotC can't publish one because they all must adhere to the One True Cosmology vision, that's going to be a drag on my own personal games. It requires some mechanical distinction, because these differences should result a different play experience. I could totally be on board for a different module that adds those mechanics other than "race," but I'm not seeing that so far in what WotC is presenting to us, so I'm left trying to make it clear that I want a Gold dwarf and a Hylar to play differently, because they are different stories, and saying they are all the same dwarf works against that.  It's not about stopping me personally so much (though no question, my campaign would feel this choice). It's about D&D as a game of imagination, as a brand that speaks of creativity, and as a toolbox to tell our own stories. One True X is more about instructions for playing with someone else's toys, lessons on how to appreciate their creativity, and a game of others' stories. I mean, I can take this Batman Play Set and make a any game my imagination can think of from it. No one's gonna stop me. But if I want to play with something that is going to be whatever I imagine it to be, why the heck would I pick up a specific Batman Play Set to do it with?</blockquote>

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