I don't trust grown men with Tintin haircuts.

Quote from: S'mon;1134851I actually had no idea that "Always Chaotic Evil" was a common trope in most people's games. Even Gary Gygax had Leda the Eclavadra (Drow high priestess) clone whose different nurture meant she turned out Good instead of Evil.

I suspect in the future we will have mostly Warcraft-style Orcs too, but personally I'm more on a pig-faced Orc kick right now.

According to some of the original players if I recall right then once a monster became a player character it could be anything really the player wanted. Good? Bad? Whatever?

I wonder when they'll suggest re-dubbing Lord of the Rings.

Quote from: AragornLegolas, what do you elf eyes see?

Quote from: LegolasThe same as yours, racist!

Quote from: Omega;1135079According to some of the original players if I recall right then once a monster became a player character it could be anything really the player wanted. Good? Bad? Whatever?

Yes, Gronan discussed this. If you had a class, you had magic pixie dust that allowed you to be unique from the rest of your species, but you'd start as a 1HD version of your monster species.

Tunnels & Trolls did this as well back in the 70s, then Palladium Fantasy did it in the 80s. AKA, playing a "good" monster has been around since the earliest days.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134415Well, I guess the intelligence debuff maybe reinforces the idea that intelligence is in any way attributed to genetics.  Every educated person knows there is zero genetic effect on intelligence and that implication of any thing else is going to lead to problematic and scientifically false conclusions.
  But they did leave the elves as having an intelligence buff.....problematic?  Not sure.

These are different species and the genetic impact on intelligence is real.
Dogs are not as intelligent as humans, more moral and better, sure, but not as intelligent. And the reason is genetic.
Now, let's look at another species, goblins. There is no reason for a game designer not to make them genetically less, or more, intelligent than humans.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134422Joking?  Every geneticist worth their salt knows evolution and differences are only up to the upper neck area.

Utter bullshit. I wish I hadn't retired (or weren't so lazy) so I could talk to the genetics authors I used to work with.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1135167Utter bullshit. I wish I hadn't retired (or weren't so lazy) so I could talk to the genetics authors I used to work with.

First talk to whoever gives your sarcasm detector maintenance, because it's broken.

Elf privilege

Quote from: mightybrain;1135156I wonder when they'll suggest re-dubbing Lord of the Rings.

Theres allready been calls to make the LOTR reboot more "diverse". They wanted that for the last set of movies. Now they want Gandalf to be a woman, its too "white"... yadda yadda the same damn spiel.

The new Amazon show is going to be more diverse racially, just look at the cast so far.

https://deadline.com/gallery/the-lord-of-the-rings-amazon-studios-cast-photo-gallery/tca_lotr_headshots_danielweyman_by_charlie_carter/

Quote from: Trinculoisdead;1135248The new Amazon show is going to be more diverse racially, just look at the cast so far.

https://deadline.com/gallery/the-lord-of-the-rings-amazon-studios-cast-photo-gallery/tca_lotr_headshots_danielweyman_by_charlie_carter/

Not inherently a bad thing imo for 2nd Age Middle Earth. They could do it well as in Game of Thrones, or poorly as in The Witcher. Random black elves are really annoying but I'm not complaining if they have black Haradrim and Asian Easterlings  and they don't have to be all baddies.

Not to flog the horse but despite my better judgement, I just read more pages of that linked forum massive thread than I intended to and it just spiraled out of control.  Good grief where to start:  Halflings as strong as Minotaurs, every player is the greatest hero ever (even at level 1!?) and far above average, I want to be a super-special case of something so I can be different, please make something optionally good so I can feel like I'm not being oppressive somehow.  So, I ask, what's stopping them?

It feels like everyone wants to be spoon-fed and their ideas made canon, when there was nothing, nothing stopping anyone from doing any of these things.  Is this a problem with younger players where if the rules don't say you can do it, then too bad?  Like a bunch of lost souls who, without some WoC biggie stating it's ok, then one can't?  Feels like some desperate form of vindication is required for some of these chuckle-heads so they can feel their ideas were worthy.  Is this all clever marketing in WoC's part to brainwash people?  The 5e DM's Guide spends a lot of pages talking about creating worlds, doing it yourself and how to go about it.  I can't really blame the company as they are trying but apparently falling on deaf ears it seems.

Don't any of these players create their own worlds, campaigns or even simple starting scenarios?  It feels like a lot of them are fated to buy the WoC product, play it as told to, rise and repeat.  Such a lack of imagination is stunning and takes away one of the best things about being a DM.  Freakin' lazy sods.

Once again feels like a fabricated, anticipated victory for a problem that was forcefully materialized out of thin air, whose only purpose is to be struck down with social justice and real-life morality issues, that never had any business being in the hobby in the first place.  I'm getting deja-vu again...

Speaking of justice and morality, for those blowing the horn loudly, I think Gygax explained it pretty well reasons for adventurers being inherently travelling mercenaries for hire.  The whole idea of players complaining about morale representation and balance for stuff, while playing a game whose main focus is to kick the crap out of things and take their stuff is such a juxtaposition, I just can't get over it.  Why kill anything?  Why have combat?  If one is so worried about everyone's feelings, why spend your time playing a game where combat and eradicating things is the main focus?  Everything has a family somewhere that will miss them so might as well hang up the armaments and open a tavern.  Wait, one would be assisting murderhobos and by association just as bad.  Better to make a farm somewhere and don't complain when monster raze your fields and burn your house down.  Heh

On that sword swinging note, I just realised that even the way the 5e rules are setup, combat doesn't even have Encounter Reactions in their step-by-step of actions.  In AD&D and before, it is specifically stated that due to a lucky roll, the 'baddies' might actually turn out to be indifferent or even friendly (DM's discretion if required).  There are specific tables to roll that indicate how reactions will occur before a sword is drawn, built right into the combat rules.

In 5e, there's some vague mention of interaction and this mechanic is pages before under 'Social Interaction'.  In 5e, the notion seems to be you encounter, you are immediately in combat.  No wonder everyone goes murderhobo.  Wonderful job WoC, taking out a crucial part of the whole combat sequence:  You mired and obfuscated the one clear step that could avoid any killing taking place.

Unsurprisingly upon reading further into that accursed forum thread, the one notion everyone seems to love to death is players are so much better than everyone else and special 'cause they're the heroes!  That doesn't smack of elitism at all as they look down at the average crowd.  Nope, that's all hunky dory for some reason.  I guess as long as the player is smarter or better then others all the morality and proper representation delusions goes out the window.  Heroes are only heroes if your side you fight on thinks so.  Wonder what the monsters call them as they and their buddies gets slaughtered for some XP, coin or territory.

To quote Gary in his 1e DM's Guide to show that there's nothing radical about this modern take:

While this game is loosely based on Feudal European technology, history and myth, it also contains elements from the Ancient Period, parts of more modern myth, and the mythos of many authors as well. Within its boundaries all sorts of societies and cultures can exist, and there is nothing to dictate that their needs be Feudal European.


Seems a reasonable approach to me.  Guy had to pick some general type of social historical structure to base the game he made on.  Not to mention that 2e had a slew of different worlds and scenarios to suit every whim.  Guess some of these posting their views missed the memo and forgot they could change anything, anytime they wanted.  Better to wait for the expansions from WoC to solve all their problems.  Who needs a library to explore ideas when you will be appeased if you shout loudly enough?

All I can say is good luck WoC on trying to cater to everyone's specificity because that's a fools errand.  No doubt you'll make a nice bit of coin being the heroes, slaughtering those bad ideas for some extra coins from the peasant folk.  Hah!  Good luck adventurers!
Ugh.  I'm never going back to that forum.  I think it made my brain hurt too much from banging my head on the table.

Funny, I removed all non-physical differences from races in my campaign long ago. More importantly though, I purged the idea cultural differences being ascribed to race. Having special "bow training" or "underground knowledge" in my world is a symptom of where you're from, not your height, the color of your skin or the shape of the your head. An elf that grows up in a underground city will know just as much about "stone" as the dwarves who make up the majority of the population there. To ascribe those qualities to race itself implies that communities are racially pure and isolated -- an assumption that is invariably challenged by players themselves, if not by my own world-building.

Strangely, what I failed to do, is announce my intentions in a grand public missive in order to demonstrate how woke I've become. I know, I'm slackin'.

Sad to see that I now need a protective disclaimer in my game ads. With it clearly spelled out that I am using the traditional evil D&D races as is with no changes whatsoever, absolutely non-negotiable or up for debate. I am not going to rework every evil race to make easily offended SJW rpg gamer feel better. If they still insist on joining perhaps tp "show me the error of ways" they will be asked to leave. Either for an online game or a real table game.

The only good thing is that will mean that older editions will be more popular as it would be too much money and time to change anything they deem problematic in D&D pre-5.

as for that megathread what a waste of my time neither side is trying to understand the other yet the pro SJW side really just wants echo chamber style arguments. Anything and everything they deem racist is and if you say no your racist beyond any shadow of doubt.

I wonder how exciting these new neutered adventures will be in D&D. No evil races everyone is the same cookie cutter character but hey at least they have their preferred pronouns and multiple genders included on the character sheet. So adventures are simply going to be the fantasy version of hobos. We can't explore land as that maybe considered encouraging colonialism. We can't hunt down evil races because even fictional races have evil rights. Mindflayers are not evil just victims of their special needs eating habits.

Ah well D&D had a good run though I think SJWs may well kill it.

My prediction: 6E will be about using the powers of Chaos and Hell to rally the 'dispossessed' humanoid races, overthrow the oppressive Lawful white human order, and establish a revolutionary society.