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Author Topic: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?  (Read 15981 times)

Wicked Woodpecker of West
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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #120 on: February 10, 2021, 06:44:08 PM »
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WotC destroyed D&D. They removed level limits, eliminated racial limits that made playing a human key, reversed THACO, and added Feats that became superpowers for Characters.

Yes. And it was awesome.

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And no one talks about this.

Whole OSR movement is mostly about it.

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They talk about races and magic but avoid the deaper mechanical aspects.

Because they are awesome :3

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AD&D is a completely different game to Third Edition. And Fifth edition is just the Fifth edition of that madness (3, 3.5, 4, Pathfinder).

And Warhammer 3ed is completely different game to 2 edition. And that's GOOD. Editions that are just small erratas are lazy and spare.

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Yes, many publishers have found ways to make money on the label, but WotC hasn't.

WoTC is making money on 5e, as probably no publisher of any RPG made in history. Wait, not, not probably - bascially certainly.

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Still do. Everyone I've gamed with over the last several decades uses them, so I wouldn't consider them "seldom used." I suppose opinions and experiences with race-based level limits vary, like everything else.

In Day of the Judgement Professor Tolkien shall return from Heavens in his glorious Celestial Somma Uniform and Smite You All With Rain Of Holy Bullets for Nerfing the Elves. Mind my words, heathens.

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Remind me which Feat lets my human character Fly again?

Celestial Wings aasimar racial feat.

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The problem I have with 3.0/3.5 is of an excessive focus on published products on "crunch" which, in turn, led to a change in many players' mindset, too. For instance, I've seen players focused on "creating character builds" instead of just "creating characters". It seems that the d20 system with its focus on feats, prestige classes and combos was turning everyone into a min/maxer.

I mean I won't deny there's some shift, but I also remember 3.0/3.5 Faerun lorebooks and there was shitton of them.

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The designers, in trying to make a game impervious to bad DMing they greatly reduced the DM's fiat.

Well yes. And that's a good thing generally, problem is as you pointed out - too much crunch.


dungeon crawler

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #121 on: February 11, 2021, 06:43:44 AM »
My favorites are still Original D&D or the B/X set or the rules cyclopedia. I am playing in a 5 E campaign right now but it does not feel like the D&D I grew up with.

Murphy78

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #122 on: February 11, 2021, 08:20:36 AM »
Best ruleset for me is Becmi/Rules Cyclopedia, the one I grew with.
Also, BX which is so close to it (basically the same game).

Retroclones: Lion & Dragon, Ose, SWN e and ACKS. They're all awesome.

I've also played a lot of 2nd Edition (mainly the core rulebooks) and it's ok for me.

3.x: no: too crunchy. I'd play Gurps anyday, instead.

4: don't know what we're talking about.

5e: jury still out. Sure as hell I find the writing style awful, it kills the will to play it.

Mishihari

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #123 on: February 11, 2021, 08:29:04 PM »
@Estar, I'm curious:  what kinds of skills did you use for kings and innkeepers?

Null42

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #124 on: February 11, 2021, 10:03:57 PM »
Not to bump off Estar, who's welcome to reply when he wants... I played OD&D, 1e and 5e (quite the shift!) and I think I do like the older editions better. The game got a little too easy...you get all your hitpoints back after resting one day? Using hit dice as a free healing ability? Oh well. A spectre comes out of a well and I freak out...turns out you lose maximum HP for a while if it hits you now. They were all rather amused to learn you permanently lost two levels if it hit you back in the day.

Doesn't really matter as long as you're having fun, but for me it feels like a bit more of a superhero game now. Oh well.

Philotomy Jurament

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #125 on: February 12, 2021, 02:24:27 PM »
Do you have AD&D campaigns that go to high levels? If so, what do the demihuman players do?

I guess it depends on what you consider "high levels." I'd consider name level and above to be high level (so around 9th level or so, although it varies slightly by class). And yes, I've had campaigns that go into those levels, although I don't recall any PCs that ever went beyond 14 or so.

Players of demihuman PCs just keep playing their PCs. (And they often have a thief class in there which is unlimited even if their other classes have hit max.)

In Day of the Judgement Professor Tolkien shall return from Heavens in his glorious Celestial Somma Uniform and Smite You All With Rain Of Holy Bullets for Nerfing the Elves. Mind my words, heathens.

My D&D campaigns aren't very Tolkienish, in any case. I prefer a more "swords-n-sorcery" feel (i.e., more Howard or Moorcock or Leiber) than a Tolkien feel.

That said, I'm a big fan of Tolkien's books and stories. And I've run some Middle Earth campaigns, too, but D&D wouldn't be my first choice of system for that. Or, if I use D&D for Middle Earth, I'd house rule it pretty extensively, changing the magic system, details of the races, and so on.
The problem is not that power corrupts, but that the corruptible are irresistibly drawn to the pursuit of power. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.

Wicked Woodpecker of West
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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #126 on: February 13, 2021, 11:17:57 AM »
Then just cut elves out of your system rather than leaving their gygaxian-heretical-Jehovah-Witnessey travesties, good sir!!!


Chris24601

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #127 on: February 13, 2021, 12:15:22 PM »
Then just cut elves out of your system rather than leaving their gygaxian-heretical-Jehovah-Witnessey travesties, good sir!!!
My elves dropped the nature/arcane magic fetish to be the devoted servants of the Astral Gods, complete with a caste-based theocratic society where the nobility and priesthood were one and the same and those elves who refused their allotted place in Elven civilization were declared anathema; relegated to the Dark caste of unpersons; and hunted by their Inquisitors so that their souls could be reincarnated back into their proper positions within the Elven hierarchy.

They also have utter disdain for non-elves since non-elves were not created to be the perfect servants of the gods (indeed, humans are said to have been created by the primal spirits who are kin to demons and this tragically inferior and so very mortal... not even capable of reincarnation).

Obviously, way more elves on the crap end of the hierarchy (“your place in every incarnation is to clean up after the nobles’ filth”) decide to say “Screw it” and take a chance on freedom. The whole “elves live in hidden communities in the woods” thing is because those who flee are hunted outlaws... they live in the woods for the same reason Robin Hood does. Many of these become PCs.

Pat
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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #128 on: February 13, 2021, 01:00:57 PM »
Then just cut elves out of your system rather than leaving their gygaxian-heretical-Jehovah-Witnessey travesties, good sir!!!
My elves dropped the nature/arcane magic fetish to be the devoted servants of the Astral Gods, complete with a caste-based theocratic society where the nobility and priesthood were one and the same and those elves who refused their allotted place in Elven civilization were declared anathema; relegated to the Dark caste of unpersons; and hunted by their Inquisitors so that their souls could be reincarnated back into their proper positions within the Elven hierarchy.

They also have utter disdain for non-elves since non-elves were not created to be the perfect servants of the gods (indeed, humans are said to have been created by the primal spirits who are kin to demons and this tragically inferior and so very mortal... not even capable of reincarnation).

Obviously, way more elves on the crap end of the hierarchy (“your place in every incarnation is to clean up after the nobles’ filth”) decide to say “Screw it” and take a chance on freedom. The whole “elves live in hidden communities in the woods” thing is because those who flee are hunted outlaws... they live in the woods for the same reason Robin Hood does. Many of these become PCs.
I don't know anything about astral gods or see a need to unite the nobility and priesthood, but I really like the rest. The caste system and outlaws works well for a high/wood elf divide. The high elves would have a Vadhagh feel, with grand past of high culture and empire, now in decline. They've mostly retreated to ancient bastions, or citadels, where the remaining high elves have mostly lost themselves in decadence and inward-looking politics and religious concerns, with the occasional hunt against the outlaws (wild elf hunt, if you will) by a warrior caste similar to inquisitors. The wood elves would live in hidden communities deep in the forest, and would be known to be very reticent and adept at vanishing.

Chris24601

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #129 on: February 13, 2021, 02:10:55 PM »
I don't know anything about astral gods or see a need to unite the nobility and priesthood, but I really like the rest.
Astral Gods is the term I use inside my system to distinguish between the more D&D standard polytheistic gods whose realms are connected to the astral plane (in my case the realms of these gods are visible in the night sky as stars and constellations... hence ‘Astral’) and the monotheistic God referred to as The Source who resides at the heart of Creation (there is significant debate between religions over whether The Source is a sapient entity or just a cosmic force akin to the Big Bang and whether the Astral Gods are their own entities or just reflected aspects of The Source akin to the motes of a mirror ball... and, unlike most D&D worlds, the spirit world/afterlife is completely unreachable save by death so you can’t just plane shift to Mount Celestia and ask).

Short version; I needed to distinguish between pagan gods (Astral) and Judeo-Christian God (The Source) and I’ve been hip deep in my project for so long I use the term by habit.

As to merging the nobility and priesthood, that’s a function of trying to properly present a truly polytheistic society (versus the default D&D henotheism) where, with few exceptions, the king was also chief priest (i.e. the bridge between the people and their gods) and the nobility also functioned as lesser priests.

This was true in Babylon/Assyria, Egypt and even Rome... often times even assigning divine status to the king (the Pharaoh was the embodied Horus and in death becomes Osiris... Roman emperors were deified in death).

The elves embody this; the high elves are the nobility because they are closer to their gods and have greater innate divine power than lesser elves. Part of their role as rulers is to commune with their gods so as to properly carry out the will of the gods in the Mortal World. All beneath them must serve in the role they were born to because the caste they were born into was the will of the gods.

If this sounds like some sort of theocratic nightmare cult, well, welcome to most religions in history. They weren’t made to get the faithful common folk to Paradise (nope they all ended up in the same bleak netherworld regardless), they were tools to enforce a social order and raise up the rulers to immortal glory.

The whole “be you king or slave, we’re all equal in Christ and all can be saved” thing was as radical and dangerous as fuck to the ruling powers of the age.

So, for my elves, being the servants of the pagan gods, it made sense to me to play the pagan religion straight and place the elves under god-kings.

Wicked Woodpecker of West
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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #130 on: February 13, 2021, 03:27:46 PM »
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My elves dropped the nature/arcane magic fetish to be the devoted servants of the Astral Gods, complete with a caste-based theocratic society where the nobility and priesthood were one and the same and those elves who refused their allotted place in Elven civilization were declared anathema; relegated to the Dark caste of unpersons; and hunted by their Inquisitors so that their souls could be reincarnated back into their proper positions within the Elven hierarchy.

They also have utter disdain for non-elves since non-elves were not created to be the perfect servants of the gods (indeed, humans are said to have been created by the primal spirits who are kin to demons and this tragically inferior and so very mortal... not even capable of reincarnation).

Obviously, way more elves on the crap end of the hierarchy (“your place in every incarnation is to clean up after the nobles’ filth”) decide to say “Screw it” and take a chance on freedom. The whole “elves live in hidden communities in the woods” thing is because those who flee are hunted outlaws... they live in the woods for the same reason Robin Hood does. Many of these become PCs.

So it's bit like Tolkien Elves but also Evil Stalinist Vedic India right?
(TBH how does it works after yer great Cataclysm that killed 99% of living beings around - are Elves just reincarnated and dominated the world by sheer numbers?

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If this sounds like some sort of theocratic nightmare cult, well, welcome to most religions in history. They weren’t made to get the faithful common folk to Paradise (nope they all ended up in the same bleak netherworld regardless), they were tools to enforce a social order and raise up the rulers to immortal glory.

I'd definitely not go so grimdark.
I mean you've chosen very strict structure akin to Vedism (ironically enough one where priest caste was divided from nobility) and very dark look of human religious needs.
I'd argue however that those bleak religions still came from certain sort of instinctual I'd say platonic instinct "as below, as above" where our world is deemed to be lesser reflection of higher reality, and was genuinely seek by people to explain reality for them.
(Not to mention pagans were also much more prone to Mandate of Heaven social philosphy - Tengrism would be very good example - if you kill god-kings and take their stuff, you are the god king now, clearly heavens wants it - so even if you are just gardener for Sumerian nobles you can build first great Semetic Empire, or from minor cheftain you can conquer half of northern Eurasia and China, and so on, and people will buy it. Ironically if anything (maybe aside of Japan) Christianity created much more stricter rules of king's legitimacy than most cruel pagans, and after wars of Dark Ages waned, and before revolutions just thrown down thrones and turned them into puppets - the kings positions turned out to be exceptionally stable and consistent in Europe - and aside of few sucession crisis that lead to more mayor wars - like two Roses, 100 years wars, or war of Spanish sucession - in most wars which war multiple in this period of mature medieval-pre-revolution-modern-times in most cases, warring kings would never even imply robbing defeated enemy of their throne).

So that's kinda important question - how is Mandate of Heavens philosophy working among elves.
You know - like in China, sure Emperor is sacred but if he's asshole, we gonna make peasant rebelion, eat the Emperor, and crown our peasant leader as new Emperor. Works very well ;)

Chris24601

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #131 on: February 13, 2021, 04:40:24 PM »
So it's bit like Tolkien Elves but also Evil Stalinist Vedic India right?
(TBH how does it works after yer great Cataclysm that killed 99% of living beings around - are Elves just reincarnated and dominated the world by sheer numbers?
It works primarily in that the elves were only pulled into the Mortal World BY the Cataclysm. It literally ripped the barriers between life and death apart and dragged a number of the elves from their astral paradises into the Mortal World. Because of their nature as spirits created by the astral gods, the number of spirits that exist in the Mortal World was fixed by the number who were initially trapped in it. The Elven population can never grow past that number and the only way for a new elf to be born is for another to die (at which point its soul moves to the womb of an elf of the appropriate caste).

This is why they hunt their heretics so incessantly; every one who abandons their place in the caste hierarchy is one that cannot be replaced. The only way to do so is either convince the Dark elf to repent and return to their place or to execute them so their soul will be reborn within elven society. If enough escape, the souls of fallen elves may even be born among the Dark Elves, robbing their divinely ordered society of even greater numbers.

That the primary focus of the hierarchy is ensuring that the elven priest-kings live in the same luxury they did in their astral paradises (where divine power alone enabled food, drink and every luxury imaginable to appear at a whim); every elf of the lower castes who abandons their place makes maintaining the façade that much harder and so causes the upper castes to make those of the lower castes who remain to work ever harder (which in turn causes even more to attempt to flee).

So, while the elves started the immediate aftermath of the Cataclysm in a commanding situation (in the setting's starting region they numbered 60,000 to the few thousand scattered humans), the two centuries since has seen their situation ever deteriorating as the human populations grow and more elves abandon their castes.

Basically, they're doomed and their leadership is ever more desperate to maintain the status quo which is what makes the kingdom of El-Phara so dangerous and why in the GM's Guide section on the default region they are described as a hostile realm (El-Phara translates to "The Place of The People". Their endonym for themselves is El... The People. The terms Elf and Elven are human contractions of El-Pharan, i.e. people from El-Phara).

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I'd definitely not go so grimdark.
It's only really the elves whose religion is grimdark. Even the orcish religion isn't as grim. Only demon worship earns you a bleaker fate than the faith of the Elven Court (which, if it has an upside, is that worship of the Elven Court is forbidden to non-elves... non-elves aren't even worthy of worshipping the true gods; they are inferior beings condemned to eventual death by their very natures).

The Big Good of religions in the setting is the Old Faith that worships The Source and whose beliefs can be summed up with one of their common professions of faith... “You are all the beloved children of The Source. Love one another. The world is a gift from your loving Creator. Care for it as you would a treasured heirloom.” Their view of the afterlife is that all who are faithful will return to and be embraced by The Source as His beloved children and heirs. That said, the Old Faith has been unpopular and even persecuted since the fall of The First Empire to its Beastmen slaves and their astral gods.

When their slaves rose up against them, their prayers to The Source went unanswered. Rather than blame themselves for committing grave sins against The Source by enslaving sapient beings, they blamed The Source for not saving them from the consequences and turned to the worship of the gods of the Beastmen who defeated them and eventually split off their own variant of that, the Via Praetorum. Only various remnant groups, mostly barbarian tribes who had abandoned The First Empire because of its many sins, still practice the Old Faith today; though in the wake of the Cataclysm it has been on the rise as human memories are short, the gods of the Via Praetorum failed utterly in the face of the Cataclysm and followers of the Old Faith escaped many of the Cataclysm's horrors that consumed so many others.

The runner-up in the good religions category is the Via Praetorum which is Roman-themed and teaches that right living will earn everyone who is faithful a place in Paradise, but still holds that the position you have in Paradise will be in line with your place in life (i.e. a peasant will still be a peasant, but the soil will always be rich, the weather always fair, the roof never leaks and the crops always abundant and easy to harvest). The orcish religion is actually a variant of the Via Praetorum with the main negative being that because they enslave anyone who isn't an orc the "Paradise in line with your place in life" translates to "if you're not an orc, you'll be a well treated slave in the afterlife."

Wicked Woodpecker of West
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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #132 on: February 13, 2021, 05:39:22 PM »
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It works primarily in that the elves were only pulled into the Mortal World BY the Cataclysm. It literally ripped the barriers between life and death apart and dragged a number of the elves from their astral paradises into the Mortal World. Because of their nature as spirits created by the astral gods, the number of spirits that exist in the Mortal World was fixed by the number who were initially trapped in it. The Elven population can never grow past that number and the only way for a new elf to be born is for another to die (at which point its soul moves to the womb of an elf of the appropriate caste).

So it's like sort of Virgin Conception - every elf restored into proper womb or is there a biological element. What if all female elves of higher caste were all murdered at the same time?
Also TBH if this reincarnarion works in that way - that seems that asshole stalinist elves are right - this is proper metaphysical order of elfishness. Weird ;)

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That the primary focus of the hierarchy is ensuring that the elven priest-kings live in the same luxury they did in their astral paradises (where divine power alone enabled food, drink and every luxury imaginable to appear at a whim); every elf of the lower castes who abandons their place makes maintaining the façade that much harder and so causes the upper castes to make those of the lower castes who remain to work ever harder (which in turn causes even more to attempt to flee).

Is there any biological / mechanical difference between castes aside of womb you were born from?

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Basically, they're doomed and their leadership is ever more desperate to maintain the status quo which is what makes the kingdom of El-Phara so dangerous and why in the GM's Guide section on the default region they are described as a hostile realm (El-Phara translates to "The Place of The People". Their endonym for themselves is El... The People. The terms Elf and Elven are human contractions of El-Pharan, i.e. people from El-Phara).

Clever (Place of the People reminds this randist weirdo Goodkind evil Mongol-Stalinist-Catholic setting where capitol was also called something like that I think). In setting I was planning I simply decided to drop traditional names for various races and just forge new ones (as each species used certain amount of languages which are sort of fake real life languages - unfortunatelly I'm not good enough conworlder to tolkien out original ones - I just went with specific names derived either from original languages, or from nicknames species give each other - and do fake-Greek (for human (idumi) civilisation of Idum) and kudeyan (for hairy bear-lion like hobgoblins who rule empire - ergo fake-Turko-Mongolic) terms.

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It's only really the elves whose religion is grimdark. Even the orcish religion isn't as grim. Only demon worship earns you a bleaker fate than the faith of the Elven Court (which, if it has an upside, is that worship of the Elven Court is forbidden to non-elves... non-elves aren't even worthy of worshipping the true gods; they are inferior beings condemned to eventual death by their very natures).

Well but then I'd expect elves to consider their situation to be not-permanent - but more, we have to reclaim our place among stars? I mean there are concious what happened to them, and that their material non astral existence is off right? And fate of lower elven spirits in their homeland - was it as grim as well, or they are just extra fucked by being trapped in matter's cage (inb4 gnostic vibe).

Also - those Astral Gods existed for long millenia right - from your first Apocalypse time - so they were known to mortal beings right, so what is human pagans stance of 40 000 lesser angels dropped in pointy-eared bodies in a middle of Apocalyptic wasteland???

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The runner-up in the good religions category is the Via Praetorum which is Roman-themed and teaches that right living will earn everyone who is faithful a place in Paradise, but still holds that the position you have in Paradise will be in line with your place in life (i.e. a peasant will still be a peasant, but the soil will always be rich, the weather always fair, the roof never leaks and the crops always abundant and easy to harvest). The orcish religion is actually a variant of the Via Praetorum with the main negative being that because they enslave anyone who isn't an orc the "Paradise in line with your place in life" translates to "if you're not an orc, you'll be a well treated slave in the afterlife."

OK and for all those people - (orcs are human mutants right) - Astral Gods are real stuff, and elves were Astral Gods angels basically. So aside of being almost extinct like all people - how to they cope with elves prancing around.

Slipshot762

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #133 on: February 13, 2021, 11:52:10 PM »
Great job on the elves imho, many try to do elves differently and wind up with normal elves but wings, or an extra eye or a tail, you've world built them in such a way as to explain the average human perception of them and I dig it.

Philotomy Jurament

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Re: D&D players - do you prefer 5e, or an older version?
« Reply #134 on: February 14, 2021, 02:35:09 AM »
Then just cut elves out of your system rather than leaving their gygaxian-heretical-Jehovah-Witnessey travesties, good sir!!!

Don't fret, I've got it covered in my games.
The problem is not that power corrupts, but that the corruptible are irresistibly drawn to the pursuit of power. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.