D&D 5E (2014) We Would Hate A BG3 Campaign

[EzekielRaiden]

You either have a predetermined set of rules or you have Anarchy.

Uh...no. That is straight up false dichotomy. There are, in fact, other alternatives.

 

[Divine2021]

I don’t think you could adequately pull off the Dribbles quest line at the table. The whole Bhaal cult thing seems next to impossible to put on the table. Thoughts?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes it would be ruined. THE dragon is a major point of the setting. The other sorcerer kings whose like cannot come again are trying to become a dragon. Reducing them by adding in common dragon people running around is a kick between the legs to the setting.

Well, I guess a lot of people who played and liked 4e DS didn't agree with you. I mean, its widely considered, by far, the most successful of the 4e-era classic settings! AFAIK the only races it really doesn't contemplate existing are the ones that are specific to Ebberon and FR, and even some of those might appear in DS...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

4E DS wasn't very good and those races were shoehorned in ignoring the lore. Same with Warlocks.

Dray don't even have characteristics of the Dragonborn beyond being vaguely dragon people.

The Dray are also hidden menace they nor really supposed to be known about at the tine 4E was set.

This is why 4E died no respect for the lore just dynamite and shoehorns.

Ironically if they had a clue they could have organically fitted them in. Just tweak the timeline a few years picking up where the old revised box left off.

Darksuns still going via fan support. Virtually none of it is 4E and on Darksun groups it's low % still using 4E Darksun (2-4% on the polls iirc).

3.5 Darksun was more popular than I anticipated there's still new DS books released this year downloaded a couple few weeks back.

4E Darksun is dead and buried pretty much.

No Dragonborn allowed on Darksun, Dray where appropriate (FY 11 or so or post CBtSS).

Darksun only added 3 races iirc in its original run.

Hogwash, plenty of people I play 4e with have loved 4e DS. It works perfectly well and its lore is basically totally vanilla original 2e-era DS lore.

 

[pemerton]

well it's common sense. You either have a predetermined set of rules or you have Anarchy. The rules can be adjusted along the way but demanding that everyone gets to change them at will is ...well...."anarchy". This might be ok for some tables but for most it's just not going to work.

Uh...no. That is straight up false dichotomy. There are, in fact, other alternatives.

Well, even if it is anarchic, so what? I mean, every other small social group activity I engage in - going to the movies, going to dinner, meeting friends or colleagues for lunch, getting my family together to play The Crew - is anarchic. Why shouldn't RPGing be also?

How is a DM supposed to prep and prepare and do all the work of creating a game if everybody with an axe to grind, a fantasy to live or who just believes no one should ever give them rule's or consequences to follow, can just tell them what they have to do. I'd just rather not run any games than deal with those people.

I'm not sure how wanting to play a Dragonborn (or Tortle, or whatever) is not believing anyone should give them consequences. Nor do I see how it makes the GM's prep harder. Most GM prep, in D&D at least as I'm familiar with it, is scenario preparation. This tends to be Dragonborn-neutral.

But anyway, I certainly don't believe my friends should give me rules to follow in our social activities. Nor me them. These are cooperative activities, not hierarchical ones. Anarchy is not a problem!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

View attachment 342926

What the 5e PHB has to say on Dragonborn.

And, I will note, I openly and unreservedly hate the entire first paragraph of this section, and have ever since we first saw it. Because it is a blatant contravention of the claimed "D&D is a toolkit" claim--and actively working to suppress entirely legitimate player interests.

If D&D is actually a toolkit, NO race is guaranteed. Not elves, dwarves, halflings...or even humans. Dwarves don't exist in two of the most popular fantasy video game franchises of all time (WoW and TES, though in the latter they are extinct rather than totally non-existent). Neither do halflings. The second most popular fantasy MMO doesn't have dwarves (except as a variant of halflings!), and the (arguable) third most popular barely has dwarves and doesn't have elves. Humans are the only thing that even approaches being a given, and even they aren't truly guaranteed.

But no, the authors just had to enshrine the Core Four as present in every universe and ghettoize the rest. Gotta get those "demn kids, get off my lawn" points, apparently.

I'm sure WotC would love to pretend this sidebar doesn't exist, and I don't expect it to be there in any form in the new not-edition. But they can't erase it from 5e!

Good. It should never have been there in the first place. Instead of wasting page space on bull$#¡† Traditional Gameplay Enforcement, they could have actually treated 5e like a toolkit. Could have shown how different slates of races can be used to emphasize themes, support different player interests, and/or explore social interactions between genuinely different physiologies or lifespans etc. But of course we couldn't have actually useful guidance in the core books. That would be bad...somehow.

Right! Some might be so heavily into Gnomes that they must leave the table. Others would not. So a game is still happening. The Gnomish are free to find a Gnome-friendly game, form their own game or join this game, despite its lack of Gnomes.

Having parameters to a game world gives it form, to some. That form fires the imagination of that some. Others are perfectly happy with less form than that for their game world. Both methods are acceptable.

Though it is false to claim, as many have done in this thread, that such things are the one and only way to achieve such ends. I have been specifically, without prompting, thanked by my players privately for the internal consistency and understandability of the world we run in, on separate occasions by two different players. I do not use hard "no absolutely not you cannot play that and will not have any opportunities to discuss it." But that doesn't mean the world of Jewel of the Desert is some timey-wimey ball of stuff.

Dragonborn are not anywhere near the established level of inclusion (so to say) for D&D that Vulcan are for Star Trek

Ahh, gotta love the catch-22. It's straight up "you must have 10 years experience in the field to get an entry level job in the field," just applied to a D&D race. It's not as old as Tolkien, so it couldn't possibly have as many examples as Tolkien's work has generated, so it won't be allowed, meaning it won't get more new examples.

Self-perpetuating exclusion.

Excluding stuff, for whatever reason, is rapidly becoming socially unacceptable.

Hyperbole, much?

Viking hat DMing is all the rage today. With textual support, even! You're just finally noticing that that style of DMing is not well-liked by a lot of players.

Turns out the "my way or the highway" attitude eventually starts seeing more than a few people choose the highway. Shocking!

If I had kids, I'd make them teach me the "right way" to play D&D.
I used to know, but I think I've forgotten.

Couldn't put it better myself.

D&D was once about embracing the fantastic and the strange, about fueling imagination and derring-do, about effusive creativity. The freedom for DMs to explore any possible world they could conjure up, and players to find new ways to always ensure that no DM plan survived contact with them (for better or worse...)

Now? You will take only what is hard-line traditional and like it. Do not question the wisdom of the ancients. Know your place, player. Be thankful you get any game at all.

Thankfully, the pendulum has begun to swing back the other way.

 

[Divine2021]

I think a thing that tables have a hard time pulling off is talking their way out of combat. BG3 does this to great effect, especially in act 2. I’ve never really seen it done otherwise. Thoughts?

 

[Divine2021]

Um, to get off my hobby horse for a second, World of Warcraft most definitely has dwarves?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Plus if there's a China equivilent in your setting, there'd probably be myths from out that way about how they're handled there. And for extra fun, dragonborn out that way absolutely would not be hated over that end, but instead basically be a celebrity, with all of the expected drama of 'yo, come visit here for good luck' and being dragged into political wheeling and dealing, the drama of being confused for basically a member of an important political faction, and how you handle the fallout if said faction shows up to investigate a possible rogue member running about

the spicy drama

Well, I ran 3 long 4e campaigns, and they all took place, ostensibly, in my existing campaign world that dates back to pre-AD&D days (so no Dragonborn were ever even imagined). When we played 4e and a dragonborn inevitably appeared, the player of that character didn't have any big concern for their character's backstory, she just thought it was cool! So I said "hey, you must have come from a far away land where the dragonborn warriors are sort of like Samurai" and so it was, the lore was born, though the character was slaughtered by Bullywugs (another totally new and unplanned addition) before too long and the player decided Pixies were even MORE fun, so that was that. lol. PC Pixies, bullywugs, Dragonborn, all just invoked as and when desired (Kenku also, a failed Eladrin biomagical experiment). It had no ill effect, quite the opposite! I think the setting is all the richer for it. In fact Hobgoblins got retconned as ANOTHER Eladrin biomagical experiment, lol. So cool!

 

[Remathilis]

No. The menu is premade and they know it before they accept the invitation.

If they show, knowing what is available, and demand something that isn't available, that is on them.

"Hey everyone. I was thinking of having some friends over to throw a huge Hawaiian luau party. Now I know Mary is a vegan, Walid is Muslim, Harold is Jewish and Cynthia has allergy to pineapple, so I guess you guys just don't come? The rest of you, come on over to par-tay!"