Level Up (A5E) Where to put ability bonuses during character creation

[Tales and Chronicles]

The impression I have is that it is intended to be backward compatible with 5E, thus you should use the same names.

And using culture is a very bad idea as it means there is only one culture per race and that it is impossible to escape said culture like a hobbit growing up in a nearby human city.

Well the game uses Culture because they players are all humans from a different culture: beorning, dalish, gondorian etc or elves or hobbits or dwarves from different culture. If you look at the source material, the peoples of Middle-earth were kinda monolithic: Rohirim love horses, the dwarves lost their home, the hobbits live in a cozy hole.

And the mechanics being backward compatible dont mean you have to use the same words! It just means that a character made with 5e can be played in a game using the A5E without to much trouble.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I've found that really depends on the player. Some people choose based on what they think would be cool, others strictly on what makes the math do what they want, and others because they really like gnomes (like my wife, bless her!)

Yes, I definitely see both kinds of players.

 

[Derren]

Well the game uses Culture because they players are all humans from a different culture: beorning, dalish, gondorian etc or elves or hobbits or dwarves from different culture. If you look at the source material, the peoples of Middle-earth were kinda monolithic: Rohirim love horses, the dwarves lost their home, the hobbits live in a cozy hole.

And the mechanics being backward compatible dont mean you have to use the same words! It just means that a character made with 5e can be played in a game using the A5E without to much trouble.

Having to translate names is imo "too much trouble"
And D&D is a lot more cosmopolitan than LotR so cultures are not as clear cut.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

And D&D is a lot more cosmopolitan than LotR so cultures are not as clear cut.

That's why I never said to call them Culture?

I was just point another OGL 5e game that use another term than ''race'' and somehow work with 5e! I can even bring a fighter from 5e and play it in Middle-Earth next to the warrior and it would still work.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I now that most D&D players love to have mechanics that go with the fluff, but I myself have a huge love for narrative-first, storytelling systems. So having the race only be relevant for the story or, maybe sometime leveraged for an advantage if it fits the in-game description of the character actions using its fluff to deal with a situation is not a deal breaker for me.

Use the physical traits of the PC to give flavor to the in-fiction description of your action. Elves generally have good sight, so if you want to play that interesting angle of the elves race, train yourself in perception, dont dump wis and describe how you use your super elven eyes when you make a perception check. You cannot see better than most human, but still cant see in darkness: seeing in the dark is the domain of magic or class features. You aaracokra has wings that help him in long jump: when you describe your PC making a long jump, describe him as spreading its wing to glide to the spot he wants to. If you dump Str, well you are a physically weak aaracokra, your wings are mangy, or twisted and wont help you much in reaching high or distant places. You still wont be soaring the sky at first level, again, this is from the domain of magic and class feature.

If you want to say you developed your aarakocra flight aptitude, boost your Str, be a Eagle Bard, be a Storm sorcerer, a Monk with step of the wind, a Fighter with Remarkable athlete, a Thief rogue, a Celestial warlock with ascendant step etc, and describe the flight feature as being not only from your magic features, but also from developing your inherent fluff with said class aptitude.

Now, this will never be a thing in D&D, but many game does that just fine. If the game is built around it, you do not need mechanical rules for races.

I completely agree that a game does not need mechanical rules for race. I do think D&D does, however, even if those rules don't have to include ASIs (although I still want them somewhere).

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I do think D&D does

Yup, using story-telling game features or dealing with meta-currencies is a big no-no for D&D. Even the PbtA Dungeon World still had a bunch of mechanical D&D-isms to the core narrative-first gameplay to fit the tastes of D&D players.

I guess most people would not like to have D&D become a game of narrative and introspection like Ryuutama, Golden Sky Stories or the new Wanderhome or narrative-driven mechanics like FATE or most PbtA games.

 

[Derren]

That's why I never said to call them Culture?

I was just point another OGL 5e game that use another term than ''race'' and somehow work with 5e! I can even bring a fighter from 5e and play it in Middle-Earth next to the warrior and it would still work.

Other games of course have different names for races, especially ones with a rather strong and specific setting. But often they don't fit D&D.
I would for example never suggest to change the name race to metahuman in D&D

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yup, using story-telling game features or dealing with meta-currencies is a big no-no for D&D. Even the PbtA Dungeon World still had a bunch of mechanical D&D-isms to the core narrative-first gameplay to fit the tastes of D&D players.

I guess most people would like to have D&D become a game of narrative and introspection like Ryuutama, Golden Sky Stories or the new Wanderhome or narrative-driven mechanics like FATE or most PbtA games.

Are you saying most people want D&D to be more like Fate? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but your first paragraph seems at odds with your second paragraph.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Other games of course have different names for races, especially ones with a rather strong and specific setting. But often they don't fit D&D.
I would for example never suggest to change the name race to metahuman in D&D

Like I said, I'm using Folk in my game (or peuple, in french, which would so mean ''people'', but I find people to be a little too generic).

You have the Elf-folk
The Dwarf-folk
The Kin (haflings) folk
The Human-folk

I also added a mechanic replacing languages by Folklore X proficiency, which includes knowledge of spoken and written language, but also culture, ethiqette, folk-specific legends and recent history of a specific folk. History checks are more for general history of the world, Folklore are more for the inner working of X society.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Are you saying most people want D&D to be more like Fate? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but your first paragraph seems at odds with your second paragraph.

Sorry: there was supposed to be a ''NOT'' before the ''like''

Corrected it, thanks.