Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6179048" data-attributes="member: 2067">For me, the central question is, what is the most useful? I think these legends have their place, and they're good...but here we get to the whole "there shouldn't just be One Orc" kind of thing. Okay, this story for dryads works, and it can represent some dryads. But it doesn't need to be The D&D Dryad (TM) anymore than the old fantasy biology approach needs to be The D&D Dryad (TM).Modularity is your friend, here. Pick one version of the critter, and put that in as one specific way the critter might be, but don't use it as the defining way that the critter IS. Drop the "almost certainly" codswallop and drop the attempt to over-dictate, and we can perhaps talk like reasonable people who don't need to get our undies in a bunch about what other people do with D&D dryads. The dryad story is an adventure-in-a-monster-entry: Free The Trapped Fey Spirit. It's a cool idea, and it begs for an entire roster of supporting game elements: sprites that guard the grove, and Heartwood that the PC's can use perhaps as a magic weapon or shield, and the possibility of uniting her with her One True Love, taking a cutting or a sapling and bringing it to the shores of Arborea where his soul rests, happy together eternally without needing to go back to the Fey Courts.All good stuff, if it's included right there with the Dryad monster entry, that sounds cool and useful. It's a seed (heh) for making good couple of weeks of gaming, and that's great adventure-focused design.But lets not assume that it is The Best Way To Use Dryads, or The Right Way To Use Dryads or the Only Way D&D Should Let You Use Dryads. Lets go for the more generic tree-spirit when that's required, too. That can have its own adventure seeds embedded in the monster entry, too. Give me an hour, I could probably whip up some mildly overwrought narrative about that kind of critter, as well. And, hell, toss in the 4e-style Angry Shrubbery dryad when that's appropriate, too (vengeful druids!). The problem isn't really the existence of these little stories. It's the perception that these little stories will be definitive that's disconcerting, because if it's definitive, then the creature becomes largely useless for other purposes.I like the adventure-in-a-monster-entry as one option among many. I'd even like to see a few monster entries done up in this style. It just needs to be absolutely frickin' clear that this isn't an attempt to define what the Dryad IS for a decade of D&D. This is one way a dryad can be -- an option, not an assumption.</blockquote>

Verification