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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gez" data-source="post: 710397" data-attributes="member: 1328">Re: Re: What have you done with the sacred cow?Here's one I've roughly slain. The Dwarven Confederation, for example, is far more important politically, militarily, and economically than even both human-ruled countries together.This one is auto-slain.Halflings are no more predominantly good, they are neutrals like humans.Gnomes are usually depicted as CE tinkers that just want to create silly steaming machines (in a very chaotic fashion), without caring for the consequences of the build-in misfunctions for the lives of others (and their own), this uncaring being the evil part.Dwarves are usually depicted as CE crude battleragers, that live only to steal treasure, kill monsters (orcs, goblins, and elves), get drunk, and have barfight.Elves are usually depicted as LE melnibonëans, coming from a distant island, having a decadent culture older than humanity (and constantly reminding people about that), feeling themselves superior to even dragons and (non-elven) gods, and having absolutely no regard for the sanctity of life, even that of their fellow elves; slaying, slaying, slaying thoughtlessly for even the most obscure of reasons -- and every elf is taught from childhood to use weapons, bow and sword, in order to kill people.True, these are archetypes. However, the huge amount of love for elves has spawned elves that don't like forests. You have mountain elves (GH grey elves, for example), sea elves, tundra elves, city elves... Each a distinct subrace, of course.Dwarves are less mutable, but I've see poney-riding steppe dwarves somewhere, IIRC in Dragonlance. I also know of people making the dwarves sea-going vikings.I'll concede you these ones, they are what define a D&D-ish fantasy setting.Yeah. It's expressely in the rules of D&D. You gain levels with experience. Changing that would require to change the game. It's the same kind of sacred cows than having classes and levels.Sure, it would be fun for a one-shot if things were handled more realistically -- surviving a fight or a trap would not make you tougher, but frailer from aftereffects of wounds and poison. Lost treasures would crumble to dust when exhumed, destroyed by worms, rust and time. Princesses would be already "wed to" (read "raped by") their abductor, when they would not be already eaten by the ogre, vampirized by the vampire, or sacrificed by the cultist. What's the point of kidnapping a princess and holding her in a cell, waiting for adventurers to arrive ? If you don't want to do anything naughty with her, you could just ask for a ransom, that'll be lower than the wages adventurer asks. Monsters would merely be disguised highwaymen, or starving wolf or bear. Maybe a lion or hyena imported from a faraway land.But is that what D&D is really about ?If you could find Mile Christi, an OOP French RPG where you play historical templars, you would be impressed. Nearly no fantasy element in it (very low magic, only heretics and pagans have sometimes some sort of magic), and especially none of the sacred cows, except of course 1 & 1a (and a bit 3, if you're not in a crusade). 5 is absolutely not there. Your character becomes weaker and weaker once the benefit of training and experience is no more sufficient to compensate injuries and aging. The game is OOP because you have to be a history major to appreciate it.Roger.</blockquote>

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