D&D General What elements does D&D need to keep? (conclusions and questions)

[Lanefan]

The biggest surprise to me is that 'surprise' was on the list of elements. I usually forget it's a thing, much less a D&D thing.

I didn't expect it to poll so low. It's a useful tactic for PCs (meaning the tacticians should like it) and for opponents (meaning the DMs should like it); but 5e has nerfed it to the point of near-irrelevance and thus - as your post shows - it gets forgotten as an element of either the game or the fiction.

 

[JEB]

@JEB can correct me here, but I think this reflects a desire to keep a pre-defined set of deities out of the core, i.e. to leave that specific setting stuff out fo the core rules.

Assuming everyone answered the poll as laid out in the OP, the literal reading would be that 30% actively want to keep deities as an element of D&D, while 70% don't. How many of the 70% are in the "get rid of them" camp, and how many are in the "not important to keep" camp, wouldn't be captured by the poll. However, 70% apparently wouldn't mind if they were gone...

 

[DammitVictor]

It's not that I don't want to have fantasy deities in D&D, it's just that I think they should entirely setting-specific, and I find the way they're portrayed in the "D&D Multiverse" settings ( ) as just "how deities work" to be disgusting and offensive.

Which doesn't mean I want those settings changed, either. I just want people to stop assuming that every new setting they make has to have "The Gods" and that "The Gods" have to work exactly the same way as they always have in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[JEB]

Comparing these results to rpg.net: D&D General - What elements does D&D need to keep? ENWorld vs. rpg.net

 

[JEB]

Comparing these results and rpg.net's to Reddit's: D&D General - What elements should D&D keep? forums vs. Reddit

 

[Faolyn]

It's not that I don't want to have fantasy deities in D&D, it's just that I think they should entirely setting-specific, and I find the way they're portrayed in the "D&D Multiverse" settings ( ) as just "how deities work" to be disgusting and offensive.

Do you mean how they included real-world deities, or something else?

 

[DammitVictor]

Do you mean how they included real-world deities, or something else?

The fact that they are divine parasites who must demand belief and devotion from their mortal worshipers or fade into nothingness, combined with the fact this "natural order" must take precedence over all moral concern. This, in turn, leads to the in-universe behavior of these gods and their temples being-- like everything bad about D&D-- strangely uniform, and very well beneath the dignity of anything I could recognize as divine.

The inclusion of real-life religious figure, including monotheistic angels and saints as well as pagan gods, is just the icing on this crap sundae.