WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[FrozenNorth]

The latter. If something is default, then it exists in the background even if never mentioned or used. If you want it to be gone, you have to explicitly remove it.

If something is true in a particular edition of a game, it is not automatically true in later editions unless specifically addressed.

 

[Maxperson]

If something is true in a particular edition of a game, it is not automatically true in later editions unless specifically addressed.

Right. We're discussing 5e where the positive and negative material planes exist by default and are part of the makeup of the prime material worlds. In 1e, 2e, 3e, and 5e they are default and have to be explicitly removed to be gone. 4e apparently ignored it in the base rules and mentioned it in the Forgotten Realms, so I wouldn't call that default.

 

[Voadam]

Why isn't a pyromancer tapping into the elemental chaos tapping into a core fundamental building block of the world?

Because in an elemental chaos world the elements collectively are the building blocks, not the individual categorized elements. Fire would be part of the elemental chaos the same way acids would be or lightning or storms. There is nothing fundamental to the four element division in an elemental chaos. You can map individual things in an elemental chaos to the four elements, but it is not necessarily inherent to the concept.

In Avatar the Last Airbender there are the fire benders of the fire nation and there are philosophies and martial arts connected to the fire theme. Same with air, earth, and water. It is different to think of this as connecting to the four elements than to think of this as tapping into fundamental primoridal chaotic power and just choosing and sticking to four specific themes.

 

[Remathilis]

Pretty sure no real-life players have ever been attacked by a dragon before.

No real life players were ever attacked by orc hordes either.

Then again, I'm completely comfortable with being a hypocrite. I think you can be accepting of the inherent problematic elements of the core gameplay loop (go to exotic locales, meet aggressive local natives, kill them and take their stuff) while still not wanting overt racism, sexual assault, etc.

And yes, it's hypocritical. Take the plot of your last D&D game and penny pretend it happened in 21st Century Earth. Try to convince us that "breaking into a hidden complex in the woods and slaughtering its residents because you were convinced they were summoning a demon" wouldn't get you arrested and institutionalized, instead of a reward from the mayor. But it's fantasy and we accept it because it lets us do things we couldn't do in real life. That said, I still don't want Faerun: SVU. I'm fine with lines and veils and I'm fine with WotC erring on the side of sanitized. I can always add a little more intensity, it's harder to strip it out.

But at the end of the day, I still accept that the game itself is built on colonialist tropes with a heavy mix of moral certitude, capitalism, and vigilantism. And I accept I am a hypocrite for giving those a pass while still frowning on how the hadozee were handled.

 

[Incenjucar]

"This supplement contains a wide variety of elementals that are ideal for both DM's and players. "

This is just statblocks and monsters. Not exactly breaking ground. Heck, they give stats for Cryonax and others, telling me that this is just someone who wanted 5e stats for things that WoTC didn't make yet. Sure, they mention that they made a salt mephit. A salt mephit doesn't mean anything at all about the plane of salt, it is just a monster. Heck, I've never sent players to the plane of fire, but I sure have used fire elementals. One does not need the other.
Elemental Compendium I: Creatures of the Inner Planes - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild


Cool, player races. Still not giving me any reason to visit the Plane of Salt. Not a single thing is going on in the Plane of Salt, even if you have Genasi of Salt running around the world on adventures.
Greater Genasi - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild


Adventures? Things actually happening in the PLane of Salt, let alone the intersection of the plane of salt and the plane of ice? Or just "salt monsters" which I don't need an elemental plane of salt or an elemental plane of salt and ice to create, use or explain?

Just the monsters? Then I stand by my previous statement and how your "just use the search function" was a rather useless counter-argument.

As usual, get the 2E material for the rules and locations because the newer editions fail at that. I really can't empathize on the need to have pre-built adventures. To me, those are just for padding out books so they look better on the shelf. If you need someone to write adventures for you for a setting to be useful, that's fair, but that has never been something I judge information on.

 

[Faolyn]

Different strokes indeed. To me, the Great Wheel looks like modern artificial, inorganic grid-filling that is way worse than the sort of grid-filling that people accused of 4e rather than something organic that mortal sages have produced or speculated about as part of human mythos. This is one reason why cosmologies like 4e's World Axis, Forgotten Realms's World Tree,* or RuneQuest do a better job, IMHO, of scratching my itch when it comes to cosmologies. Though for a lot of my other games, I usually opt for a far simpler setup.

To me, the Great Wheel looks like a clockwork universe model.

 

[Zardnaar]

So that's an argument that sexual assault is just fine in the game as long as it's done by something that doesn't exist in real life. I'm absolutely certain that's wrong and that a dragon sexually assaulting a woman in the game would be traumatic and painful to a player who has been raped.

Generally it's a terrible idea to include SA as part of the gaming experience. I wouldn't include it except maybe very very indirectly eg it gets mentioned "during the sack of Kings Landing 20 years ago".

Villains gonna villain even then if things like that can happen fade to black and here's 4d6 or whatever new character time.

 

[Incenjucar]

I will offer, if someone really needs help, to write a brief Plane of Salt adventure for 5.5E, but only if it's sincerely going to be run from start to finish with a play report afterward. The term "Salt Princess" keeps popping up in my head and it will be quite tragic.

 

[Maxperson]

Generally it's a terrible idea to include SA as part of the gaming experience. I wouldn't include it except maybe very very indirectly eg it gets mentioned "during the sack of Kings Landing 20 years ago".

Villains gonna villain even then if things like that can happen fade to black and here's 4d6 or whatever new character time.

I agree. I've never included it and never will. I just don't see a reason to do so. My post was about the counter argument she made about violence. That counter argument fails as I demonstrated with my question about sexual assault. If the criteria is must have been possible in the real world, then anything bad in game perpetrated by any non-human is automatically okay.

 

[Zardnaar]

I agree. I've never included it and never will. I just don't see a reason to do so. My post was about the counter argument she made about violence. That counter argument fails as I demonstrated with my question about sexual assault. If the criteria is must have been possible in the real world, then anything bad in game perpetrated by any non-human is automatically okay.

Generally bad things can happen and exist in my world. It's usually in the back ground though and I'm not gonna narrate a torture scene for example.

Torture, slavery, genocide etc all exist just not gonna happen to the PCs or at least described in any great detail.

Functionally it's you're dead create new character.

Session 0 basically I ask if you're comfortable watching game of thrones. Since I don't go as far as GoT does if they do it's fairly safe assumption they're fine with what I serve up.

Your pc might get eaten, slave markets exist, genocide may have happened in the past (eg no Kender)