D&D (2024) What innovative elements from Baldur's Gate 3 would you like to see implimented in 2024 D&D?

[TheSword]

One thing I hope changes is that somehow Duergar will be made wicked cool again, the ravagers of the Underdark like they are in BG3, as opposed to the boring, frankly banal version we were presented in Monsters of the Multiverse.

They were handled well in War of the Spider Queen - angry, rapacious, belligerent, and warlike.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

They were handled well in War of the Spider Queen - angry, rapacious, belligerent, and warlike.

The D&D team has been approaching a multiversal perspective that prevents painting humanoid species as inherently "evil". I anticipate they'll keep this up in the new Monster Manual.

Are you saying you prefer when certain humanoid races are depicted as evil in a monster manual? That would encourage "good" races to "other" them, like historical D&D did with drow, orcs, and goblins.

 

[Scribe]

The D&D team has been approaching a multiversal perspective that prevents painting humanoid species as inherently "evil". I anticipate they'll keep this up in the new Monster Manual.

Yes, generic, boring, safe, inoffensive to the point of banality, fence riding 'you can be anything'. Make sure you pick up your generic floating asi, and grab bag of skills and DM approved languages at the door.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Yes, generic, boring, safe, inoffensive to the point of banality, fence riding 'you can be anything'. Make sure you pick up your generic floating asi, and grab bag of skills and DM approved languages at the door.

I agree that "evil" should not be inherent to particular humanoid species, rather it be cultural/societal for individual communities/societies/campaigns. The duergar society depicted in BG3 may be evil, but it doesn't mean all duergar, everywhere, are.

I think that BG3 is doing a good job to depict evil, based on supernatural/religious/local societal influence, as they also include examples of non-evil characters of those races.

 

[TheSword]

!/,.

The D&D team has been approaching a multiversal perspective that prevents painting humanoid species as inherently "evil". I anticipate they'll keep this up in the new Monster Manual.

Are you saying you prefer when certain humanoid races are depicted as evil in a monster manual? That would encourage "good" races to "other" them, like historical D&D did with drow, orcs, and goblins.

I should be clearer and say I liked the way the Duergar of Gracklestugh were depicted as angry, belligerent, rapacious and warlike.

I’m fine with narrowing the focus instead of trying to make sweeping assumptions.

 

[Divine2021]

The D&D team has been approaching a multiversal perspective that prevents painting humanoid species as inherently "evil". I anticipate they'll keep this up in the new Monster Manual.

Are you saying you prefer when certain humanoid races are depicted as evil in a monster manual? That would encourage "good" races to "other" them, like historical D&D did with drow, orcs, and goblins.

I think we shouldn’t over think a game that is basically a violence simulation and let there be a species of cool Vikings of the Underdark, like the Duerger are presented in BG3.

 

[MarkB]

I know I joke about the 'too dumb to operate Rage' thing, but what age of kids are we saying 'remember page on book, add die number to stat' is too complicated for?

Anywhere up to mid-40s in my experience.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I think we shouldn’t over think a game that is basically a violence simulation and let there be a species of cool Vikings of the Underdark, like the Duerger are presented in BG3.

I think it's a cool community of villainous folk who happen to be Duergar. But not all duergar should be depicted that way in a multiversal Monster Manual.

Duergar are not inherently evil in my home game, rather are more akin to spriggan-like dwarven tieflings.

• There is a good-sized population of duergar in a "devil-enslaving empire" (not devil-worshipping), alongside tieflings, hellflings (halfling tieflings), halflings, dwarves, humans, and muls (dwarfblood hybrids).
• Further away, in the Feydark beneath a sylvan realm, there are duergar that trade their darksteel-craftworks for beautiful gems provided by their local svirfneblin allies. They are the more martial arm of that symbiotic relationship who support each other against the expanding Beholder/Formorian Eyelliance.
• Then there are duergar expatriates that migrated to other multi-cultural lands where they want to make an honest living competing in relative peace. It's the society and religion that shapes them.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think we shouldn’t over think a game that is basically a violence simulation and let there be a species of cool Vikings of the Underdark, like the Duerger are presented in BG3.

While I appreciate the idea, I think asking people not to overthink D&D is a doomed endeavor. We're constantly demanding more lore and content on obsurce subjects.

 

[CapnZapp]

What this idea needs in practical terms is for there to be written up a set of rules after the new rules appear this fall. And of course, the rules suggestions need to stand on their own, and not require any knowledge of how the video game works. (Most posts in this thread are incomprehensible if you are hazy on details of how BG3 works)

It's the wrong timing to spend time on incorporating BG3 innovations into 5E right now.

Assuming few if any BG3 innovations actually make it into the 2024 ruleset, there still needs to be an editing pass that checks so that each suggested BG3 rule actually fits within the new ruleset.

Likely the enthusiasm will have died down come release date, and Larian's innovations will be lost to time, and not be taken up by future editions of the game. The timing was just bad - had the success of BG3 been evident eighteen months ago, then maybe the idea to incorporate some of its more popular "house rules" into the new edition could have happened...