Without tinkering, GURPS does sword and sorcery very, very well.  It can do higher magic (common magic) fantasy like dungeons and dragons, but for capturing a certain feel and creating the atmosphere, GURPS is really good at blood and mud, or swords and sandals.  Dungeons and dragons in its current incarnation I think does what it is very well, with the caveat that the non magic classes are a bit loaded to me with special abilities that sort of leverage away the need for a caster buffing you till you glow or having the sword of awesome with the belt of mighty  to be a big contributor to the party.  The rest changes also make combat sort of video game like, which when I am in the mood for that, i can enjoy it (honestly enjoy it more as a player than GM, running a game, it is easier (lazy??) to make combat tense if there is legitimate risk in many combats, and extreme risk when you engage the heavy hitters as well) a whole lot too.   Dungeon Fantasy, for example is very similar in tone to Dungeons and Dragons, and I like them both.   But both play and GM, I like Gritty sci fi, and sword and sorcery.  GURPS is very, very good at both of those.

IMC the drow tell the legend of how the Great Mother was betrayed by the Traitor Lover. So Lolth cast Corellon out from the Bosom of the Earth, where he and all his children would be cursed forever by the burning flames of the sun, bleached until their flesh was pale as bone.

Elves are naturally black, y'all.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134684For the Conan setting?  Well, magic in conan is not low, it is subtle in many cases, or literally world shaking.  The thing is, the characters have no access to it.  Magic weapons are almost non existent,  and there is no player that has a character capable of anything approaching magic.

Apologies, that is basically what I meant and what I was asking.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134684I am surprised about 5th edition in the fact that is is more survivable (at least up to level 5) than I would have expected.  I think they have one +1 warhammer in the group of 5 players.   I would love to keep it in that vein, where magic is rare, but awesome, but when you have a ranger and a paladin already casting spells about I think that is wrong game.

Interesting

I'm using Mini Six and 1e AD&D(!) for my low magic swords & sorcery games. AD&D is surprisingly easy to run as low-magic just by using some of the official rules, like rolling randomly for Magic-User spells rather than giving everyone Fireball, and by clamping down on NPC level inflation. For my 1e Bloodstone Lands campaign I halved the official NPC levels and keep those of my own creation in the 1-8 range, this makes a very big difference in practice. The NPC MUs having randomly rolled spells makes the biggest difference of all, since they provide what the MU PC can learn on level-up.

I ran the party through a couple of published adventures, and given they are not in any way balanced, expected TPK.  Especially the end of the forge of fury.   But I played the dragon as the adventure suggested (I would not have played a dragon the way they suggest) and I think ranged weapons are more effective than I thought they would or could be.  There are a couple of chars (the paladin, rolled god like for his attributes and that made a big difference) that have good stats too.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134672So my hazy memory tells me there was a piece (Dragon article?) a long time ago (70s?) suggesting dms dump the published descriptions of monsters or at least change them up a lot, if only because even back then, if you went by the book,  players "knew too much" about what they were facing. Could go overboard with that, but can be useful advice.

I do this all the time.  I think the problem with going overboard is not so much changing up the description but using a vast hodge-podge of creatures such that the players never learn what any of them can do.  Thus, I change the descriptions (and sometimes minor abilities) of probably 70% to 80% of the creatures I use, but most of those creatures I use several times.  Some start terrifying and stay that way.  Some start scary and after dealing with them, the players feel more confident about handling them next time.

The Drow should have been cursed with pink skin with bright green dots, less drama that way.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134601Which is why Drow (If living since millennia in caves) should be white as paper.

Only true if their skin colour comes from melanin.

Quote from: Nephil;1134698The Drow should have been cursed with pink skin with bright green dots, less drama that way.

And in your campaign, they can be. Q.E.D.

The moment I read about Warhammer's Dark Elves, I tossed the Drow.

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Quote from: Spinachcat;1134772The moment I read about Warhammer's Dark Elves, I tossed the Drow.

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Yeah, Baby, yeah!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134772The moment I read about Warhammer's Dark Elves, I tossed the Drow.

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Those "dark elves" look light-skinned and highly problematic. Obviously an example patriarchal white colonialism trying to feed the male gayz.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134668People keep trotting lore as RAW, Last time I played like that was several decades ago.

Actually... several of those examples are from 5e. Not TSR era.

Holy shit, someone on reddit with a reasonable take:

QuoteBut is saying that elves are all arrogant bigots any better? Or that dwarves are all stubborn alcoholics? Or that halflings are lazy and carefree? Pretty much every race in DnD has a negative stigma attached to them in some way or another, tackling evil races (which aren't part of the "status quo") just feels like WotC is using current day events to garner attention.

Mongolians might be real people, but the rampaging hordes of Ghenghis Khan are long gone. Are we not able to also depict an ancient germanic culture through a race because Germans were once Goths? Are Chultans not stereotypical Aztec/Mayan descendants? Isn't the overzealous theocracy of Elturel offensive to some cultures as well, like talians and the Spanish? Aren't the Uthgardt tribes of Icewind Dale based on Vikings? Isn't Calismshan just Morocco? And Cormyr medieval France? The Moonshae Isles are filled with arrogant snobs who look down on others, like the UK.

Putting aside that a dark goddess like Lolth would favor darkness and shadow and thus influence her people's appearance, putting aside that having dark skin is a good evolutionary trait for the Drow's environment, and putting aside any other reason, both out-of-universe and in-universe, that the Drow might look the way they do, fact of the matter is, most of DnD is inspired by real world mythology, and the Drow are no different. They come from Norse mythology, being mentioned in proses, mostly. It's not wrong to use old mythology as inspiration for your game, and to try to attach that piece of history with modern day identity politics is intellectually dishonest and unreasonable considering those proses didn't stem from racism in any way.

Obviously going to the average person and mentioning Drows the way you do will get a reaction, but the average person typically doesn't know basic geography or their own history, let alone obscure mythology from an extinct culture halfway across the world. DnD was made by nerds for nerds, and while I'm glad that there has been a renaissance and that many people are getting into the hobby, it should not be at the expense of its core audience. Just because the knee jerk reaction of someone who's ignorant on the subject and context is to call it racist, doesn't mean it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/hb3zlb/diversity_and_dungeons_dragons_dungeons_dragons/fv7j58p/

1.  A rationed, well thought out argument with salient references on Reddit?  Hell has frozen over.
2.  Ok, which one of you is moonlighting on Reddit?  Heh