What is wrong with race class limits?

[Storm Raven]

"It's what your DM thinks that is important, not what I think."

"The DM is final arbiter of all rules."

-Gary Gygax, Dungeon Master's Guide.

And despite this, for some reason, 1e engendered more vociferous and contentious rules arguments than any other edition I have played. Could it, perhaps, have been the vague and unclear rules? Could it have been the lack of guidance? Could it have been the arbitrary and unexplained nature of many of the rules? There is a reason why the primary target of the "gaming arguments" humor in Knights of the Dinner Table is a thinly disguised version of 1e D&D, complete with pronouncements from a Gygaxesque game creator.

No, you don't get any points by arguing that, somehow, 1e AD&D was a less fertile ground for arguments than subsequent editions. DMs who behaved like you advocate, in my experience, ended up gaming by themselves, in their basement, with an audience consisting of themselves.

Yes, I know, the 3e books subtly communicate that the DM should always be challenged, and is always wrong when he deviates from the rules as written. Balderdash. If the DM makes a decision, respect the decision or leave. Don't waste time arguing. That's time that could be spent gaming.

And somehow, when I have played 3e D&D, we have always had an environment almost entirely devoid of rules arguments, and no one has thought that the rules somehow made it a part of the game to "challenge" the rules or that the DM is doing something wrong when he deviates from the rules as written. Of course, since we have decided to play D&D, we usually play D&D, and not "Bob's Egomaniacal DM Power-Tripping Variant Game", so this rarely comes up.

 

[FireLance]

Rights? Privileges? Good grief.

This is a game, not a constitutional convention. :\

Seriously, DMs are free to impose whatever restrictions they want, and players are free to find another DM or run a game themselves if they don't like the restrictions. With its unified mechanics, CR system and wealth by level guidelines, 3e makes it much easier for anyone to run a decent game.

 

[Storm Raven]

You're right. Demihuman PCs have always been a part of D&D. It is also the case that options for demihuman PCs have continually expanded from 1974 to today, so that demihuman PCs are far less limited than they used to be and are therefore probably more common.

I don't think that excluding demihuman PCs makes D&D cease being D&D. The impression I get from the 1974 rules is that Gary basically threw them in there simply because The Lord of the Rings was (and is) so popular. In other words, demihuman PCs started out as a marketing technique: "Hey! You can have a party of four hobbits, an elf, a dwarf, a magic-user, and two fighters! Sound familiar? Hint, hint." Here are the options for demihumans in the 1974 rules:

Elves could rise as high as 4th-level fighters and 8th-level magic-users.
Dwarves could rise as high as 6th-level fighters.
Hobbits could rise as high as 4th-level fighters.
And that's it.

Those roles are so restrictive that it is a very small step to disallowing them completely. Compare that to the notes in the 1974 rules that humans are completely unlimited in class and levels (with examples mentioned of 20th-level characters). Imagine a party of three 20th-level humans and a 6th-level dwarf. He'd be toast. The numbers were stacked to clearly discourage demihuman play.

Ergo, I do not think a human-PCs-only game thereby ceases to be D&D.

If you are going to use this sort of argument as a basis, then you should also disallow thieves, rangers, druids, paladins, specialist wizards, assasins, bards and, well, really any character class except fighting-man, cleric, and magic-user. All weapons should do 1d6 damage, and clerics should not get spells at first level.

"Original intent" arguments based upon hos D&D looked in 1974 make no headway with me. They are just silly and can be discounted as such. DMs who run their games based upon such assumptions aren't worth my time.

 

[Piratecat]

Whoo, whoo! Look, everyone, over here! It's a warning!

People are getting angry, and comments are getting personal. If this thread is to continue, everyone needs to divorce their annoyance with particular gaming styles from the people who happen to like those styles. Backhanded insults to large classes of people who game differently than you isn't okay.

 

[molonel]

Note: I was composing this post before the Mod comment. I don't believe any of my comments are personal, but I will happily erase them if they are perceived as such.

You're right. Demihuman PCs have always been a part of D&D. It is also the case that options for demihuman PCs have continually expanded from 1974 to today, so that demihuman PCs are far less limited than they used to be and are therefore probably more common.

More common? They've always BEEN common. In every edition. Every party I've played. Every campaign I've run. Every campaign where I've played a character. Basic, 1st, 2nd, 3.0, 3.5. One of my favorite 1st Edition characters was Boltac. I stole the name from Boltac's Trading Post in Wizardry. I resurrected him for 3rd Edition. He was a dwarf with the Hammer of Thunderbolts that he found in the 1st Edition Giants series of published modules.

I don't think that excluding demihuman PCs makes D&D cease being D&D.

I never said it did. You can literally run any kind of fantasy game you want to under D&D rules. That doesn't make it NOT D&D. But it's NOT the 1st Edition classic-dungeon-crawl-returning-to-the-basics game that you're selling. Classic D&D had elves and dwarves, and we played them because it was cool and fun.

The impression I get from the 1974 rules is that Gary basically threw them in there simply because The Lord of the Rings was (and is) so popular. In other words, demihuman PCs started out as a marketing technique: "Hey! You can have a party of four hobbits, an elf, a dwarf, a magic-user, and two fighters! Sound familiar? Hint, hint." Here are the options for demihumans in the 1974 rules:

Elves could rise as high as 4th-level fighters and 8th-level magic-users.
Dwarves could rise as high as 6th-level fighters.
Hobbits could rise as high as 4th-level fighters.
And that's it.

Those roles are so restrictive that it is a very small step to disallowing them completely. Compare that to the notes in the 1974 rules that humans are completely unlimited in class and levels (with examples mentioned of 20th-level characters). Imagine a party of three 20th-level humans and a 6th-level dwarf. He'd be toast. The numbers were stacked to clearly discourage demihuman play.

Ahahahahahahaha!!!!

You make it sound like this is the Bible, and we need to go back to the original Greek and Hebrew to understand how God intended us to play D&D.

Ergo, I do not think a human-PCs-only game thereby ceases to be D&D.

It's still D&D. So is an evil campaign. So is a low magic campaign. So is a desert campaign. So is an underwater campaign where all of the players are waterbreathing races. So is a Starjammer campaign. So is a Dark Sun campaign. So is a Ravenloft campaign. So is a Ghostwalk campaign were all of the players are undead, or an angelic campaign were they are all celestials.

All of those things are D&D.

 

[dcas]

This whole statement basically negates itself - you're essentially saying "DMs shouldn't have to explain themselves, except when they might have to in order to avoid losing all their players." I mean, that's not exactly how you phrased it, but presumably you do see that there's a medium of "explaining yourself so as to convince players of the coolness of your house rules" between "house-ruling whatever you like" and "changing your house rules to attract players".

Well, yes, but I don't think it's the DM's job to explain any house rules he might have. It's strictly optional. . . .

 

[FireLance]

So, going back to the original question, and recognizing that there are many styles and preferences when it comes to gaming, there is nothing wrong with race class limitations (as a concept, if not the specific implementation in previous versions of D&D) if:

1. You wish to enforce certain campaign-specific characteristics of the races, e.g. humans are flexible and have unlimited potential, halflings do not make good fighters, dwarves are non-magical, etc.

2. You wish to provide a disincentive or impose a cost for playing a character of a "non-standard" race, e.g. you are running an human-centric campaign.

3. You want your players to manage resources over the length of a campaign, and trade off future disadvantages for starting advantages, e.g. the ability to multiclass, and other racial benefits.

4. You wish to run a game that emphasizes other things apart from personal improvement (gaining levels), e.g. the acquisition of power by other means (wealth, magic items, political power, etc.), interaction with NPCs, plot development, etc.

However, race class limitations (and, equally, front-loaded advantages) can be problematic if you want all the player characters to be approximately as effective as each other (intra-party balance) at all stages of a campaign, assuming the campaign lasts long enough for the race class limitations to come into effect.

Race class limitations can also be a problem if you want to encourage non-standard races, or non-standard members of each race, as player characters.

In addition, race class limitations may be implemented in a way that seems to go against the flavor of a particular race, e.g. a magical race that is unable to achieve high levels in a magic-using class, or a race with a martial culture that is unable to achieve high levels in a fighting class (the definition of "high levels" will, of course, vary from campaign to campaign).

 

[Particle_Man]

For what it is worth, Gygax gives a bit of a speech in the DMG 1st ed. about monsters as player characters. Here he refers to gold dragons and the like. Since the 1st edition contains pc elves, dwarves, etc., it seems that Gygax did not consider them to be monsters, although he did want the world to be humanocentric.

But I think if a DM restrict pcs to humans only because they cannot conceive of sentient non-humans well enough to play them as non-human, then the DM should not have any NPCs that are sentient non-humans. Just humans and "critters" on both sides of the screen. Otherwise one would be claiming that the DM is capable of thinking like a dwarf when the players are not, and I fail to see a basis for making that distinction.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Well, yes, but I don't think it's the DM's job to explain any house rules he might have. It's strictly optional. . . .

I see your point, but I think that's pretty silly.

A DM is not like an employer, who can offer you a job without explaining or defending his workplace rules and guidelines.

A DM is just another gamer, one who's bringing you a set of ideas for a fun game you can play together.

I think players have the right to ask why the DM wants to do things a certain way.

 

[Storm Raven]

For what it is worth, Gygax gives a bit of a speech in the DMG 1st ed. about monsters as player characters. Here he refers to gold dragons and the like. Since the 1st edition contains pc elves, dwarves, etc., it seems that Gygax did not consider them to be monsters, although he did want the world to be humanocentric.

Actually, if you read that section, one of the reasons he gives for players not playing "monsters" as PCs is that they will be driven to behave too much like monsters - the player of the gold dragon will, because he is playing a gold dragon, seek to have his PC hoard treasure and live alone and so on. Not that the player could not play the role, but rather that the role did not lend itself to playing in the context of a party oriented dungeon delving game.

There was also a question of game balance alluded to - those who want to play monsters as PCs, in Gygax's writing, are assumed to want to do so because of the power boost that doing that would grant. However, if the game is otherwised balanced to allow for such characters, this issue would seem to pretty much solve itself - if playing a gold dragon means that I'm a 1st level character while everyone else is a 17th level human or demi-human (or whatever the appropriate adjustment would work out to be), then the power seeking issue goes away.

But, on the main topic, the problem with class and level limits is that they don't do the job they were intended to do. I don't think anyone would deny that the array of special abilities gained by nonhuman races in Oe/1e/2e were, in general, superior to the race based special abilities gained by human characters. The question is how do you create some sort of equity so that playing an elf is not an obviously superior game choice to playing a human? The method Gygax chose was race and level limits. But that doesn't do much to solve the problem. Before level 8-10 or so, it provides no balancing effect at all, and at levels higher than that, it simply imposes a hard cap, which doesn't provide balance either - it just means that demi-human characters retire, having never been hampered in their in-game use to compensate for their array of benefits. In effect, it tries to achieve a goal by imposing a rule on something else entirely. Level limits are sort of like you town council saying "everyone has to mow their lawn, and if they don't, we will make these orphans eat broccoli for dinner every night." It is a "cure" that has no relation to what it is trying to remedy.

I think that the 3e methodology - making all PC races more or less balanced against one another a priori - is a better solution. Then, if you want to impose race and level limits as a setting element (or not), the system remains more or less equitable, since the races were balanced to begin with.