Quote from: Ratman_tf;1067867I thought the goal was to get them to want to play...

  The real purpose of old-school D&D is to learn how to die, thus training to confront the bleak and uncaring universe with your own unfettered freedom and Will to Power.

  (I wish I could be certain I was joking. )

Quote from: RPGPundit;1067831And yet, even with all that, there's still 31.94% of players on there making non-conventional races. Nearly one-third of players on D&D beyond making weirdo races, and they don't even have tabaxi there as an option!

Oh heavens? One whole third? So at any given table, I might have 4 humans and a dragonborn and a tiefling?! That party sure would look... pretty darn normal. A bunch of humans and two "special/unique" (whatever term you want there) characters. ...so just fancier/more dressed up dwarves and elves when they get to the costuming department.

Quote from: Kiero;1066956You've obviously never seen the fantasy menagerie or travelling circus that many D&D parties are in contrast to the world they inhabit. Where they are not even remotely representative of demographics, but instead contain one each of all the supposedly rare species that exist, and have none of the common ones.

Have you ever considered reflecting that in the campaign world? Make all the races they choose the common ones, and dump all the rest. Nobody wants to play a human, halfling, dwarf or elf? Bye-bye.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1067867I thought the goal was to get them to want to play...

You know the goal (and goalposts) will just keep moving as the thread goes on. If it's people having fun doing things Pundy doesn't personally like, there'll be a reason it's tantamount to the downfall of civilization.

Man, that joke fell flat.

Quote from: Chris24601;10678653e/3.5e says hi! It took Tome of Battle near the end of the run to fix the fighter (i.e. the warblade class) into anything other than a joke.

You're equating my use of "better" with "mechanically advantageous". They have nothing to do with one another.

QuoteExcept this is an ongoing trend with Pundit declaring entire playstyles wrong/illegitimate/not real roleplaying. One gets the impression sometimes that Pundit's real beef with the SJW crew is that they're the ones in charge of the gatekeeping and not him because he'd gatekeep just as much based on his ideas of what is "true roleplaying".

He alienates a lot of people he doesn't have to because of continual jabs at anyone not playing a human-only (1e races if you HAVE to) sandbox in the standard of AD&D or B/X is doing it wrong and unknowingly playing into the hands of the SIWs (i.e. "they taught you wrong on purpose" implying sinister intent to anyone who plays differently than him).

I appreciate his commitment to free speech, but he's his own worst enemy sometimes and I know from PMs he's driven off more than a few people who would otherwise be good fits (i.e. care about gaming and not politics) with his absolutism.

Well, quite honestly, all those stupid races can rightly fuck off. Is it gatekeeping for me to say that people who want to play dragonborn in a normal D&D campaign are just fucking it up?

Quote from: Kiero;1066956You've obviously never seen the fantasy menagerie or travelling circus that many D&D parties are in contrast to the world they inhabit. Where they are not even remotely representative of demographics, but instead contain one each of all the supposedly rare species that exist, and have none of the common ones.

Quote from: Pat;1067880Have you ever considered reflecting that in the campaign world? Make all the races they choose the common ones, and dump all the rest. Nobody wants to play a human, halfling, dwarf or elf? Bye-bye.

For that matter, consider the demographics of veteran warriors, miracle-working priests and wizards capable of practical magic in comparison to the world they inhabit... warriors in general were in the roughly 1% club (so veterans would be a fraction of that), priests were in the 1-in-1000 range (monks, sisters, deacons and the like were more like 1-in-50, but I figure clerics should be at least "priest" level rare) and there's no real way to measure wizards with practical magic in the real world, but probably also in the 1-in-1000 range.

Frankly, if there's an entire kingdom inhabited by a given species (dragonborn or tieflings for example) somewhere on the continent, the odds of meeting a traveling one is probably no rarer than meeting a wizard and they're going to have veteran warriors, priests and wizards too.

Quote from: Brad;1067899You're equating my use of "better" with "mechanically advantageous". They have nothing to do with one another.

Actually, I was equating "better" with able to do anything meaningful in a party of other adventurers.

Fighters in 3e have crap skills (and an even crappier skill list), awful saves, largely useless feats (at level 20 you're still choosing from a list of abilities that were barely solid for a level 6 character) and because of how full attacks work in 3e can't even dish out reliable damage if their target moves more than 10 feet away from them during their turn. You are absolutely better in all situations having a barbarian, ranger or even a rogue in your party than a fighter.

Hell, the Expert NPC class is considered to be as good an addition to a party as a 3e fighter would be.

Quote from: Brad;1067899Well, quite honestly, all those stupid races can rightly fuck off. Is it gatekeeping for me to say that people who want to play dragonborn in a normal D&D campaign are just fucking it up?

Yes. Yes it is. Just because it doesn't meet your tastes doesn't mean its not a fun roleplaying experience for others.

This is why, despite the game I'm designing being 95% in line with OSR sensibilities, I'd NEVER market it as something OSR... because most of the OSR ("Honorable" and otherwise) has turned into a bunch of fucking awful gatekeepers who look down their noses at anyone who doesn't play the way they think they should.

Congratulations to both sides on making OSR a toxic brand.

Quote from: Brad;1067899Well, quite honestly, all those stupid races can rightly fuck off. Is it gatekeeping for me to say that people who want to play dragonborn in a normal D&D campaign are just fucking it up?

Yes.

There's something to be said for the idea that the perfect time to run a snowflake race is under a DM that hates when you do it.  If you play something thats supposed to be viscerally unique and then, in game, nothing's really different than if you were playing a human... It loses a certain something.  The only tiefling in 500 miles walks into a bar in a city he's never been to and everyone treats him all normal...

But a gm who hates schmancy races seems ideal for bringing the appropriate level of antischmancy gravitas to the behavior of local npcs.

Thats sort of the only time I think of funky races as snowflakey, when a player expects to have all the advantages of the fancy race, but none of the blowback.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1067854I have accepted that not every game of D&D has to be the perfect idea of my campaign world. I would much rather be playing "Conan" than "Harry Potter goes to Waterdeep". But to steal a phrase from the fishing community: "The worst day playing D&D is still better than the best day working"

No! This forum has established as an article of faith of GoodRightFun that "No gaming is better than bad gaming", an absolute principle that must never ever be compromised! You must demand a human only campaign, loudly! Stomp out if there's even one human who is a sorcerer with the draconic bloodline! Familiars must be humans! Paladin steeds must be humans! All treasure chests must be the actual bloody chests of humans! If you can't play Dungeons & Humans and nothing else, you must take your dice and your all-human miniature figures and GO HOME! :mad:

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1067896Man, that joke fell flat.

I haven't even posted it yet and already the reviews are bad.

Gabe from interparty conflict recently pined for a warforged warlock. They're calling it the Forgelock.

I don't think the OP's observation is anything new. Talislanta may have marketed itself as the "no elves" game, but it also had a distinct lack of humans, dwarves, halflings, etc. You basically played creatures created straight out of Jim Henson's workshop.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1067912Yes.

You just told me that it's "not my table", so maybe you just need to shut the fuck up and let me run my games how I want. Right?

Quote from: Chris24601;1067903For that matter, consider the demographics of veteran warriors, miracle-working priests and wizards capable of practical magic in comparison to the world they inhabit... warriors in general were in the roughly 1% club (so veterans would be a fraction of that), priests were in the 1-in-1000 range (monks, sisters, deacons and the like were more like 1-in-50, but I figure clerics should be at least "priest" level rare) and there's no real way to measure wizards with practical magic in the real world, but probably also in the 1-in-1000 range.

Frankly, if there's an entire kingdom inhabited by a given species (dragonborn or tieflings for example) somewhere on the continent, the odds of meeting a traveling one is probably no rarer than meeting a wizard and they're going to have veteran warriors, priests and wizards too.


Actually, I was equating "better" with able to do anything meaningful in a party of other adventurers.

Fighters in 3e have crap skills (and an even crappier skill list), awful saves, largely useless feats (at level 20 you're still choosing from a list of abilities that were barely solid for a level 6 character) and because of how full attacks work in 3e can't even dish out reliable damage if their target moves more than 10 feet away from them during their turn. You are absolutely better in all situations having a barbarian, ranger or even a rogue in your party than a fighter.

Hell, the Expert NPC class is considered to be as good an addition to a party as a 3e fighter would be.


Yes. Yes it is. Just because it doesn't meet your tastes doesn't mean its not a fun roleplaying experience for others.

This is why, despite the game I'm designing being 95% in line with OSR sensibilities, I'd NEVER market it as something OSR... because most of the OSR ("Honorable" and otherwise) has turned into a bunch of fucking awful gatekeepers who look down their noses at anyone who doesn't play the way they think they should.

Congratulations to both sides on making OSR a toxic brand.

Oh look, another person telling me I'm not allowed to have an opinion about rpgs. Is "gatekeeper" just a buzzword for someone who won't play with you? Like, start your own stupid fucking game. I could care less if a bunch of idiots want to play D&D in a way I think is stupid. Conversely, I'm under no obligation to play with them.

Quote from: Brad;1067936You just told me that it's "not my table", so maybe you just need to shut the fuck up and let me run my games how I want. Right?

A lot of anger there, snowflake.