jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Kae'Yoss said:Elves, Dwarves, and so on are staple in a very large part of fantasy, and they're staple in all the big "role models" D&D has. Thus, it's reasonable to include those choices.
Well, the fact is, those races aren't a staple in a very large part of fantasy as a genre, just in the most accessible fiction of that genre (most notably Professor Tolkien's work). Even amongst D&D's listed sources of inspiration (per the AD&D 1e DMG), these demi-human racea are only present in roughly half of them.
Assuming the presence of demi-humans by default sets the stage for a very specific kind of fantasy, while ignoring others. Now, it's true that players can ignore the default assumption concerning demi-humans, but in doing so, you're houseruling the game to do something other than what it is designed to do by default.
You need rules for spellcasting. The class system needs a set way to use magic. You can't just say "this guys do magic, figure out how". D&D's way sure is exotic, but using mana would be just another assumption. There'd be people wanting another way for magic to work no matter what. Note that D&D has more than one way to work magic (wizards' way and sorcerers' way) right in the core rules, to adapt the rules to your liking, and more are in optional rules, both from Wizards and from third parties.
I'm not saying that you don't need rules for magic but that, as they appear in the PHB, the D&D spell casting rules aren't very flexible and cleave very closely to specific assumptions about magic (even the core class variations introduce very little deviation from these default assumptions). Again, yes, you can change it up -- but that's not how magic is implemented by default.
Alignment: One of the easiest things to edit out actually. Ignore alignment for characters, ignore alignment based effects for the most part.
Oh, I agree wholehearetdly, but the fact that you can ignore it doesn't change the fact that the game defaults to worlds of black and white morality. Indeed, the very fact you must/i] ignore alignment to get away from that black and white morality highlights my point about default assumptions very well
That's not exactly true. All clerics are casters - it's in their class description. There surely isn't anything that says you can't make a priest using the expert class (choose class skills appropriate to this, like knowledge (religion, the planes, history), diplomacy, perform (oratory)).
Again, while it's true that you can introduce non-spell casting priests, they're not what the game defaults to.
And that's the point -- the game defaults to a certain number of setting assumptions (i.e., automatically assumes certain things to be true of all settings designed for use with it). Defaults can certainly be changed, added to, or ignored -- but that doesn't alter the reality that, by design, these are the assumptions that the game is built around.
I guess the point is that, even without a list of setting-specific deities, D&D already has a great many built-in setting assumptions that don't apply to the whole of fanatsy as a genre. Indeed, contrary to popular belief, the only place that all of these default assumptions appear together is in D&D or fiction based on it. D&D really is its own genre mode.
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