What the tin says, if YOU were developing a non-woke "clone" of D&D 5e what would you change, what would you leave as is what would you import from other games?
I would remove the woke paragraph on gender in the 5e PHB:
"You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.
You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide."
This is homosexual/transgender propaganda.
/facepalm
You can help stop the lunacy by using the biological term "sex" instead of "gender."
When the likes of Dr. Money started that trend, it was the "foot in the door" event that led to what we see now.
For example, if someone says "oh there are 72 different genders to the human race" I say "no, there are two sexes: male and female."
Really, just by doing that it can help. :)
As for a non-woke clone, lessee...quite a bit would be changed or removed. But absolutely that part to start with. If it's not there the old strength rating system would be back, although because of smaller size female characters would in certain cases get a +1 to dexterity (e.g. moving along the edge of a building).
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 26, 2021, 08:50:23 PM
What the tin says, if YOU were developing a non-woke "clone" of D&D 5e what would you change, what would you leave as is what would you import from other games?
The short rest/long rest mechanic. I know that would require a near complete rewrite of the game, but I always hated that rule (mainly because it makes game feel too MMORPG-ish to me).
Mainly, I wouldn't. Because if I'm going to the trouble to do something like that, I'm not going to be constrained by some of the 5E oddities, such as the oddball skill list. There is no space on the Venn diagram between "compatible enough to be a 5E clone" and "changes enough to make it worth my time." Which is why instead I'm taking a few ideas from 5E, but far more from BEMCI/RC, and then going off somewhere non-compatible with it.
However, in the spirit of the question, if I felt otherwise, here are some things I'd think long and hard about doing:
- Leave a lot of rules out. Less classes, less races, less spells, etc. No paladin, no monk, no warlock, no sorcerer. Or maybe keep the paladin and drop the cleric in favor of a less armored holy caster. I think 8 to 9 classes will cover everything if we aren't constrained by D&D traditions on the exact classes chosen.
- Add back in more classic elements from the dungeon, including "turn" based mapping--though maybe not at the 10 minute duration.
- Give more alternate examples on how to do things in the advice, depending on the desired outcome.
- Do a second pass on the various path choices for each class to make them more varied. That is, slightly less items from the base class and slightly more from the path.
- Make the Ranger (and Paladin if kept) not casters by default, but have them with a path caster options, similar to how the Fighter and Rogue have their casting paths.
But the biggest one of all (and traipsing into non-clone territory) is generally shrink the numbers all around. In particular, make hit points scale more slowly with level.
- Players start with a feat
- Fix a few outlier feats
- Fewer Races, more meaningful Race options (e.g. Human, Dwarf, Elf)
- Players roll defenses
- Tweaks to classes
- Inspiration gets replaced with Fate-like system where player can invoke an aspect for advantage
- Combat turns get progressively more deadly each round to reduce slogs
- Replace Good/Evil axis with Based/Woke in all alignment descriptions
Quote from: 1989 on July 26, 2021, 09:15:54 PM
I would remove the woke paragraph on gender in the 5e PHB:
"You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.
You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide."
This is homosexual/transgender propaganda.
Seems just having the player in question allow their character a girdle of masculinity/femininity would solve the issue of trapped in the wrong body QUICK.
Quote from: oggsmash on July 27, 2021, 12:25:17 PM
Quote from: 1989 on July 26, 2021, 09:15:54 PM
I would remove the woke paragraph on gender in the 5e PHB:
"You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.
You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide."
This is homosexual/transgender propaganda.
Seems just having the player in question allow their character a girdle of masculinity/femininity would solve the issue of trapped in the wrong body QUICK.
That seems to be something each table could easily implement on their own, no need to include it in no rules.
I'd remove Jeremy Crawford, and add the RPGPundit. Then I'd let the rewrite begin.
That would help a lot. Jeremy is emblematic of the new and current direction of D&D.
Cheers!!!
Quote from: Jam The MF on July 27, 2021, 01:14:14 PM
I'd remove Jeremy Crawford, and add the RPGPundit. Then I'd let the rewrite begin.
That would help a lot. Jeremy is emblematic of the new and current direction of D&D.
Cheers!!!
LOL, the dream team would certainly include Pundit, Thomden and lots others from this forum IMHO. Good luck convincing them.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 27, 2021, 12:38:21 PM
Quote from: 1989 on July 26, 2021, 09:15:54 PM
I would remove the woke paragraph on gender in the 5e PHB:
That seems to be something each table could easily implement on their own, no need to include it in no rules.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 27, 2021, 01:33:20 PM
LOL, the dream team would certainly include Pundit, Thomden and lots others from this forum IMHO. Good luck convincing them.
At the time, Pundit was a big proponent of that woke paragraph. He wrote about it back in 2014:
QuoteI was completely and explicitly in favor of Wizards including that, just as they did. Contrary to what you have implied I have never and would never be opposed to inclusion on the basis of gender or sexual orientation. I have always been firmly in support of gay rights; I have had gay and bisexual players in my gaming groups, my wife (The Wench) and I lived for many years with a gay couple renting our spare bedroom, I have been a supporter of LGBT rights in Uruguay (which is one of the most progressive countries in South America on that note, where not only has gay marriage and adoption been legalized but anyone from the age of 12 onwards has a right to choose the gender stated on their identity card), and to my knowledge (maybe someone can point me to a pre-existing work that proves otherwise, but if so I did not hear of it) my Arrows of Indra is the first RPG to feature a transgendered character on the cover.
It's true that in some areas I would be seen as "conservative" by the broken dualistic concepts the U.S. paradigm is stuck with; but this is not one of those areas.
Source: https://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2014/07/if-youre-going-to-hate-me-at-least-do.html
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 26, 2021, 10:29:37 PM
Mainly, I wouldn't. Because if I'm going to the trouble to do something like that, I'm not going to be constrained by some of the 5E oddities, such as the oddball skill list. There is no space on the Venn diagram between "compatible enough to be a 5E clone" and "changes enough to make it worth my time."
As I explained previously in the other thread, this is basically where I'm at; there's enough wonky and/or against my preferences in 5e to not be worth me doing a 5e retroclone, but instead do my own system.
My start point was 4E, but with a mission to "question everything" which did result in some changes in the direction of some 5e mechanics, but ultimately resulted in a system as distinct from D&D as Palladium's system (which is why I felt comfortable with dropping the WotC OGL/d20SRD so I can have my own Open System License with zero ties to WotC).
Like Steven Mitchell, to keep on topic with the thread, here are some of my changes from 5e;
- Replaced ability scores (i.e. the 3-18/8-20) with the modifiers directly (i.e. your score is 3 instead of 16 which generates a +3 modifier). Almost nothing in 4E/5e directly references the score (in 4E only carry capacity and starting hit points reference the scores, everything else uses the modifiers).
- Tweaked the attribute list for non-OGL compliance; STRength, ENDurance, REFlexes, WITs, INTellect, and PREsence.
- Went even tighter on what 5e calls "bounded accuracy" (it increases by about +3 over 15 levels) for combat so that progression is entirely linear along the "hit point/damage dealt" axis. This means ANYTHING in sufficient numbers can be a threat to PCs regardless of their levels (even a max level hero will overwhelmed in a straight fight if outnumbered 20-1 by mooks).
- Loosened up the bounded accuracy for skills and set a number of special maneuver that would be feats and such in other systems as simply higher difficulty actions. Special abilities then give bonuses to those actions to allow those higher difficulties to be reached more reliably. The idea here is to remove the "you need X to even attempt Y" pit that a lot of 3-5e feats created.
- Also tightened up and rebalanced the skill list; Acrobatics (REF), Arcana (INT), Culture (INT), Deceit (PRE), Engineering (INT), Fitness (END), Insight (WIT), Intimidate (PRE), Medicine (WIT), Nature (WIT), Persuade (PRE) and Stealth (REF). Strength doesn't have any skills of its own because it provides raw ability (lifting capacity, climbing and swimming speed, jump distance, plus melee weapon attacks) that is then pushed with Fitness/Endurance. Several skill uses got moved around; ex. there is no "Thievery" skill because all the picking locks/disabling traps is Engineering and all the pick pockets/sleight of hand is Stealth.
- Four defenses/rolls that use the best of two attributes as their base; Armor (STR or REF + armor), Dodge (REF or WIT), Fortitude (STR or END) and Willpower (INT or PRE).
- Constrained my equivalent of hit points across the board. It's higher at level 1 fof PC's (25-30 points) but the top end at level 15 isn't even 4x that (95-114 points). By contrast non-combatants and weaker critters might have as few as 4 points.
- In the default rules the players roll most things while the GM sets target numbers. Players roll to attack an opponent's defense target number, and roll their defense against an opponent's attack target number. There's a bunch of optional rules for changing who rolls what so the GM can set the system to match his own preferences (ex. Old School would be everyone rolls weapon attacks vs. defense target number and everyone rolls defense vs. spell attack target numbers).
- In keeping with more modern settings and the idea that it's easier to cull than create, I include a wide array of races; technically its 10, but several of them; beastmen, eldritch and mutants; are basically "build your own" races (with half a dozen or so examples) where a number of different races share a common origin in the default setting.
- I broke classes up into combat-related abilities (still called classes) and non-combat abilities (backgrounds) for a mix-and-match approach* to building a PC. A D&D ranger, for example, would be a fighter class with the barbarian or traveler background, while the classic D&D fighter would be a fighter class with the military background, a paladin would be a fighter with the religious background, etc.
- The classes are Fighter (weapon wielder), Gadgeteer (arcane devices), Mystic (primal/natural magic), Theurge (divine pacts), Wizard (arcane lore) and Mastermind (doesn't fight, but helps others fight better). Each class also has a some options that determine which attributes work best for them; ex. a fighter chooses a fighting style (strong, swift or berserker) and fighting focus (daring, tactical or wary) to determine whether they need Strength or Reflexes and Presence, Intellect or Wits (The D&D ranger would be strong or swift+wary, the D&D barbarian is berserker+daring, and the classic D&D fighter would be strong+tactical).
- Each class also chooses a path that determines how they approach combat; ex. wizards can choose abjurer (defense), benedictor (buffs), interdictor (control), maledictor (damage) or summoner (pets). Non-combat magic is part of the background.
- Backgrounds provide all the non-combat abilities, including skills. They're designed to be fairly generic; arcanist, aristocrat, artisan, barbarian, commoner, entertainer, military, outlaw, religious, and traveler; with skills, languages and a selection of benefits they pick from as they level up (ex. the arcanist background is where you'll find utility spells, but also can grant apprentices, familiars and special skill bonuses for learning languages, lore checks and performing rituals).
- Companions, hirelings and mercenaries, plus mass combat rules are built right into the system from the ground up (vs. needing to do conversions from the normal stats into the mass combat stats)... which was actually the original impetus for the tighter "bounded accuracy" on combat mentioned above.
- Lots of optional rules to help the GM tailor the mechanics to his liking (ex. default is "big damn heroes" where PCs start about equal to a 4th level D&D character, but there are options for starting anywhere from level 0 all the way down to level -3; the latter of which is basically equal to a 0-level D&D character).
- Focus on tools for new GMs under the idea that not everyone is going to be starting with WoketC's games (ex. established GMs don't need help setting up a campaign region for a sandbox campaign, but a new one could use some guidance).
- In general, put all the options into the core rather than leaving things to later supplements. Ideally a player book with a relatively low price-point should be all a player will ever need to play; supplements would be world books with locations, NPCs and monsters/traps/hazards built using the rules supplied in the core (basically paying for the convenience of not having to build them yourself).
Quote from: jhkim on July 27, 2021, 03:30:18 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 27, 2021, 12:38:21 PM
Quote from: 1989 on July 26, 2021, 09:15:54 PM
I would remove the woke paragraph on gender in the 5e PHB:
That seems to be something each table could easily implement on their own, no need to include it in no rules.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 27, 2021, 01:33:20 PM
LOL, the dream team would certainly include Pundit, Thomden and lots others from this forum IMHO. Good luck convincing them.
At the time, Pundit was a big proponent of that woke paragraph. He wrote about it back in 2014:
QuoteI was completely and explicitly in favor of Wizards including that, just as they did. Contrary to what you have implied I have never and would never be opposed to inclusion on the basis of gender or sexual orientation. I have always been firmly in support of gay rights; I have had gay and bisexual players in my gaming groups, my wife (The Wench) and I lived for many years with a gay couple renting our spare bedroom, I have been a supporter of LGBT rights in Uruguay (which is one of the most progressive countries in South America on that note, where not only has gay marriage and adoption been legalized but anyone from the age of 12 onwards has a right to choose the gender stated on their identity card), and to my knowledge (maybe someone can point me to a pre-existing work that proves otherwise, but if so I did not hear of it) my Arrows of Indra is the first RPG to feature a transgendered character on the cover.
It's true that in some areas I would be seen as "conservative" by the broken dualistic concepts the U.S. paradigm is stuck with; but this is not one of those areas.
Source: https://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2014/07/if-youre-going-to-hate-me-at-least-do.html
Welp, Pundit is out of the dream team then, and he's now officially too woke/progresive for my tastes, Children of age 12 choosing their "gender"? You mean children that still dream of becoming superheroes? At that age one can barelly wipe their own arse much less decide on such things.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 27, 2021, 03:51:01 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 26, 2021, 10:29:37 PM
Mainly, I wouldn't. Because if I'm going to the trouble to do something like that, I'm not going to be constrained by some of the 5E oddities, such as the oddball skill list. There is no space on the Venn diagram between "compatible enough to be a 5E clone" and "changes enough to make it worth my time."
As I explained previously in the other thread, this is basically where I'm at; there's enough wonky and/or against my preferences in 5e to not be worth me doing a 5e retroclone, but instead do my own system.
My start point was 4E, but with a mission to "question everything" which did result in some changes in the direction of some 5e mechanics, but ultimately resulted in a system as distinct from D&D as Palladium's system (which is why I felt comfortable with dropping the WotC OGL/d20SRD so I can have my own Open System License with zero ties to WotC).
Like Steven Mitchell, to keep on topic with the thread, here are some of my changes from 5e;
- Replaced ability scores (i.e. the 3-18/8-20) with the modifiers directly (i.e. your score is 3 instead of 16 which generates a +3 modifier). Almost nothing in 4E/5e directly references the score (in 4E only carry capacity and starting hit points reference the scores, everything else uses the modifiers).
- Tweaked the attribute list for non-OGL compliance; STRength, ENDurance, REFlexes, WITs, INTellect, and PREsence.
- Went even tighter on what 5e calls "bounded accuracy" (it increases by about +3 over 15 levels) for combat so that progression is entirely linear along the "hit point/damage dealt" axis. This means ANYTHING in sufficient numbers can be a threat to PCs regardless of their levels (even a max level hero will overwhelmed in a straight fight if outnumbered 20-1 by mooks).
- Loosened up the bounded accuracy for skills and set a number of special maneuver that would be feats and such in other systems as simply higher difficulty actions. Special abilities then give bonuses to those actions to allow those higher difficulties to be reached more reliably. The idea here is to remove the "you need X to even attempt Y" pit that a lot of 3-5e feats created.
- Also tightened up and rebalanced the skill list; Acrobatics (REF), Arcana (INT), Culture (INT), Deceit (PRE), Engineering (INT), Fitness (END), Insight (WIT), Intimidate (PRE), Medicine (WIT), Nature (WIT), Persuade (PRE) and Stealth (REF). Strength doesn't have any skills of its own because it provides raw ability (lifting capacity, climbing and swimming speed, jump distance, plus melee weapon attacks) that is then pushed with Fitness/Endurance. Several skill uses got moved around; ex. there is no "Thievery" skill because all the picking locks/disabling traps is Engineering and all the pick pockets/sleight of hand is Stealth.
- Four defenses/rolls that use the best of two attributes as their base; Armor (STR or REF + armor), Dodge (REF or WIT), Fortitude (STR or END) and Willpower (INT or PRE).
- Constrained my equivalent of hit points across the board. It's higher at level 1 fof PC's (25-30 points) but the top end at level 15 isn't even 4x that (95-114 points). By contrast non-combatants and weaker critters might have as few as 4 points.
- In the default rules the players roll most things while the GM sets target numbers. Players roll to attack an opponent's defense target number, and roll their defense against an opponent's attack target number. There's a bunch of optional rules for changing who rolls what so the GM can set the system to match his own preferences (ex. Old School would be everyone rolls weapon attacks vs. defense target number and everyone rolls defense vs. spell attack target numbers).
- In keeping with more modern settings and the idea that it's easier to cull than create, I include a wide array of races; technically its 10, but several of them; beastmen, eldritch and mutants; are basically "build your own" races (with half a dozen or so examples) where a number of different races share a common origin in the default setting.
- I broke classes up into combat-related abilities (still called classes) and non-combat abilities (backgrounds) for a mix-and-match approach* to building a PC. A D&D ranger, for example, would be a fighter class with the barbarian or traveler background, while the classic D&D fighter would be a fighter class with the military background, a paladin would be a fighter with the religious background, etc.
- The classes are Fighter (weapon wielder), Gadgeteer (arcane devices), Mystic (primal/natural magic), Theurge (divine pacts), Wizard (arcane lore) and Mastermind (doesn't fight, but helps others fight better). Each class also has a some options that determine which attributes work best for them; ex. a fighter chooses a fighting style (strong, swift or berserker) and fighting focus (daring, tactical or wary) to determine whether they need Strength or Reflexes and Presence, Intellect or Wits (The D&D ranger would be strong or swift+wary, the D&D barbarian is berserker+daring, and the classic D&D fighter would be strong+tactical).
- Each class also chooses a path that determines how they approach combat; ex. wizards can choose abjurer (defense), benedictor (buffs), interdictor (control), maledictor (damage) or summoner (pets). Non-combat magic is part of the background.
- Backgrounds provide all the non-combat abilities, including skills. They're designed to be fairly generic; arcanist, aristocrat, artisan, barbarian, commoner, entertainer, military, outlaw, religious, and traveler; with skills, languages and a selection of benefits they pick from as they level up (ex. the arcanist background is where you'll find utility spells, but also can grant apprentices, familiars and special skill bonuses for learning languages, lore checks and performing rituals).
- Companions, hirelings and mercenaries, plus mass combat rules are built right into the system from the ground up (vs. needing to do conversions from the normal stats into the mass combat stats)... which was actually the original impetus for the tighter "bounded accuracy" on combat mentioned above.
- Lots of optional rules to help the GM tailor the mechanics to his liking (ex. default is "big damn heroes" where PCs start about equal to a 4th level D&D character, but there are options for starting anywhere from level 0 all the way down to level -3; the latter of which is basically equal to a 0-level D&D character).
- Focus on tools for new GMs under the idea that not everyone is going to be starting with WoketC's games (ex. established GMs don't need help setting up a campaign region for a sandbox campaign, but a new one could use some guidance).
- In general, put all the options into the core rather than leaving things to later supplements. Ideally a player book with a relatively low price-point should be all a player will ever need to play; supplements would be world books with locations, NPCs and monsters/traps/hazards built using the rules supplied in the core (basically paying for the convenience of not having to build them yourself).
That reads like something I might enjoy playing, but it hardly would attract the typical 5e player as a substitute for 5e.
The idea is: IF you were to create such a substitute (clone) what would you leave in, what would you drop, what would you add.
You changed everything to such a point where it no longer resembles 5e (or D&D) at all.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 27, 2021, 04:34:32 PM
You changed everything to such a point where it no longer resembles 5e (or D&D) at all.
It actually plays a LOT like D&D at the table, but yes, your noting thst its NOT 5e is entirely the point that I even opened with. Like Steven Mitchell there is almost no overlap between 5e mechanics I like and a game I would find worth my time to write.
Frankly, the easy clone is to just cut-and-paste its SRD, apply new fonts/formatting to it and drop some creative commons artwork in it and call it done. But that's literally all would do because I legitimately do not care enough about something as half-assed mechanically as 5e is to fight the parts I do not like to try and make something I do like.
To put it another way, unlike the 3e/4E divide where there was a huge change of direction, there is almost nothing about 5e's
mechanics that makes it sell better than other editions/clones. It's entirely that it has the D&D brand name (and cross-promotion via shows like Stranger Things), it was marketed as a return to form/nostalgia/not 4E, and, presently, inertia.
None of its actual selling points is something you could actually use to market a 5e retroclone (indeed, the OGL outright forbids you from even being able to reference its compatibility with 5e D&D by name... which is why you always get euphemisms like "compatible with the 5th edition of the world's most popular role-playing game.").
The game I'm currently designing is just about as far as 5E D&D as you can possibly a get. A friend of mine has described it as something out of an alternate-timeline. Others that have seen it have described it as:
Riddle of Steel with cards instead of dice
4E D&D, but Dark Souls instead of World of Warcraft
Some bits of Ars Magica, but more like Fullmetal Alchemist
Warhammer Fantasy but Anime
As for 5E non-woke clones, I would be more interested in adapting Tome of Battle, Expanded Psionics Handbook, and Magic of Incarnum from 3.5 to 5e with bits and pieces of Mongoose Conan d20. If D&D is fantasy super-heroes now, then lean into it.
Reinventing the wheel too much defeats the purpose of a clone. Fantasy heartbreaker TTRPG is a different story.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 26, 2021, 10:29:37 PM
- Do a second pass on the various path choices for each class to make them more varied. That is, slightly less items from the base class and slightly more from the path.
- Make the Ranger (and Paladin if kept) not casters by default, but have them with a path caster options, similar to how the Fighter and Rogue have their casting paths.
But the biggest one of all (and traipsing into non-clone territory) is generally shrink the numbers all around. In particular, make hit points scale more slowly with level.
I favor these suggestions. 5E is shallow on player choice/expression through mechanics.
I also think it's silly how the core classes are almost all spellcasters in some way, which favors a high-magic fantasy style that doesn't really model most fantasy fiction well.
Does 5E allow you to mix and match patch choices? You can allow more variety with fewer choices simply by allowing more combinations. Previous editions had massive game breaking problems with that, but we live in an age of AI playtesting. (Reference: https://youtu.be/X8nnCPl_uwc)
Actually, I think AI playtesting is the one big thing I would add. It won't tell you if your game is fun, but if you're trying to evaluate whether a new feat or path is broken, algorithms will give you much more comprehensive and concrete data on the problem.
Quote from: Cave Bear on July 27, 2021, 07:44:52 PM
Does 5E allow you to mix and match patch choices? You can allow more variety with fewer choices simply by allowing more combinations. Previous editions had massive game breaking problems with that, but we live in an age of AI playtesting. (Reference: https://youtu.be/X8nnCPl_uwc)
Actually, I think AI playtesting is the one big thing I would add. It won't tell you if your game is fun, but if you're trying to evaluate whether a new feat or path is broken, algorithms will give you much more comprehensive and concrete data on the problem.
Keep in mind that RPG rulebooks are printed with typos and game systems regularly have no-brainer mathematically best choices. I don't think AI playtesting is in the cards.
Quote from: Zelen on July 27, 2021, 08:20:40 PM
Keep in mind that RPG rulebooks are printed with typos and game systems regularly have no-brainer mathematically best choices. I don't think AI playtesting is in the cards.
Typos are not a playtesting problem though. That's an editing problem. Obviously an AI won't fix that but that doesn't make it any less effective for the problems it is intended to fix. The no-brainer mathematically best choices are exactly the kind of problems that AI playtesting can solve.
Quote from: Zelen link=topic=43801.msg1180859#msg1180859Replace Good/Evil axis with Based/Woke in all alignment descriptions
Deplorable/Woke
Edit: I'd ditch classes and go with Backgrounds only. Scholar gets arcane spells, Acolyte gets divine spells, Hermit gets druid spells. Bards, paladins, and rangers are half-casters, respectively. No one else gets spells. No monk, no warlock, no sorcerer. But that's more 6E than 5E.
I have only played 5E once (ran the Big Boss for a friend's game). Nothing about the mechanics seemed "woke". Also, from my conversations with the DM and players in that game, it does not sound like there in anything in the basic chargen that is "woke". Rather the "woke" is in the WotC milieu (campaign guides), adventures, and supplement rulebooks (e.g., Tasha's Cauldron of Everything).
Also, it seems to me that most, if not all, of the mods suggested in this topic have nothing to do with removing "woke".
So to me it seems that the key to making 5E not "woke" is to not play it as "woke".
YMMV.
Quote from: dkabq on July 28, 2021, 06:54:17 AM
Also, it seems to me that most, if not all, of the mods suggested in this topic have nothing to do with removing "woke".
That's because we're not really talking about preserving the initial non-woke 5e as is. We're really talking about what sort of Pathfinder-like changes that should be made to a clone after the inevitable woke 6e releases.
Basically some people seem to think lightning will strike twice and maybe they can be Paizo 2.0 with a retrocloned 5e+their personal house rules for it. My opinion is that the mechanics have almost nothing to do with why 5e sells so well and so the game to make to compete with 6e is just the best non-woke product you can conceive of.
ETA: Also, I don't think mechanically 6e will be all that different from 5e, they'll just change out the fluff text/art for woke versions, rename race to "ancestry" and assign -2 penalties to all checks for every one of white, male and heterosexual that apply to the PLAYER in the name of social justice and equity.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 28, 2021, 08:36:44 AM
Quote from: dkabq on July 28, 2021, 06:54:17 AM
Also, it seems to me that most, if not all, of the mods suggested in this topic have nothing to do with removing "woke".
That's because we're not really talking about preserving the initial non-woke 5e as is. We're really talking about what sort of Pathfinder-like changes that should be made to a clone after the inevitable woke 6e releases.
Basically some people seem to think lightning will strike twice and maybe they can be Paizo 2.0 with a retrocloned 5e+their personal house rules for it. My opinion is that the mechanics have almost nothing to do with why 5e sells so well and so the game to make to compete with 6e is just the best non-woke product you can conceive of.
ETA: Also, I don't think mechanically 6e will be all that different from 5e, they'll just change out the fluff text/art for woke versions, rename race to "ancestry" and assign -2 penalties to all checks for every one of white, male and heterosexual that apply to the PLAYER in the name of social justice and equity.
I agree with Chris, and will extend that thought to other reasons to have an alternate game besides competing with 5E: There are some solid rules in 5E, at least in part. As rules go, it's larger issue is that it is trying to be all things to all people while written by a committee. This "vision"--more than even their execrable fiction masquerading as adventure content--is the main limiting factor to its appeal. (It may seem strange to talk about a limiting factor with such a behemoth, but there it is.) To frame it, then:
- The advantage of using 5E is that it is easy, accessible, and has a wide range of preset interest from the players. Those are not small things!
- The advantage of using something more tightly designed is mainly that you can run a better game. Where "better" is going to vary considerably depending on the interests of the group and the design of the rules.
A theoretical clone of 5E that is compatible enough to 5E to leverage that "easy, accessible" part needs to double-down on that to distinguish it from 5E. "Not Woke" isn't nearly enough. It's the opposite of the Knights of the Dinner Table running gag of Hackmaster ads--"Now with 200% more rules!" "80% of 5E with 80% of the rough edges removed, and oh yeah, not pushing a narrative" is a competing game to 6E. Add some additional options (e.g. easy domain management, a skills system that isn't a thin layer of fluff over the ability checks, etc.) and the selling point gets even easier. Huge bonus points if you can write good GMing advice into the rules.
However, that game still isn't going to be as interesting at a given table as a more tightly designed game with a more narrow, focused appeal. If your goal is to get the kind of game you want at your table (whether to sell or just to run), then 5E clone is not the way to go. If your goal is to try to catch the lightning with a business plan, then you want to be the RPG design equivalent of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. WoW took off not because Blizzard was innovative--they weren't. Rather, they were relentless at focusing on and taking other peoples' innovations and making them as easy as possible to use and understand. A successful 5E clone will be "More 5E than 5E was", if that makes sense. Producing that takes a lot of elbow grease, attention to detail, and a pragmatic director who is ruthless in cutting out things that don't fit that idea.
I was thinking about the alignment question, and came up with a thought after helping a friend build a divine soul sorcerer character.
Instead of alignment, you have a trait called 'affinity'. You do not have to declare any affinity at the start, though at some point you may find yourself sliding into one or another. There are four types: law, chaos, good, and evil.
Developing an affinity gives you advantage in some situations, and disadvantage in others, especially when dealing with extraplanar entities. It also may affect certain spells or magic items.
Quote from: dkabq on July 28, 2021, 06:54:17 AM
I have only played 5E once (ran the Big Boss for a friend's game). Nothing about the mechanics seemed "woke". Also, from my conversations with the DM and players in that game, it does not sound like there in anything in the basic chargen that is "woke". Rather the "woke" is in the WotC milieu (campaign guides), adventures, and supplement rulebooks (e.g., Tasha's Cauldron of Everything).
Also, it seems to me that most, if not all, of the mods suggested in this topic have nothing to do with removing "woke".
So to me it seems that the key to making 5E not "woke" is to not play it as "woke".
YMMV.
"Wokeness" is basically Zombie-ism writ large. The thing you're looking at isn't your loved one any longer, it's just using the corpse of someone you once loved to spread its virus. That's true whether it's D&D, or Star Wars, or your Alma Mater, or the US government.
We can try to ignore it, but that just means it's going to continue on destroying things and causing harm. You can try to keep it around by locking it up in a cage and ignore the bad smell and constant hungering for flesh, but eventually you'll get bitten.
The only long term plan is take everything worth taking, go someplace new and start building.
Reduce the number of magic using classes drastically, to probably just the wizard and cleric as a first order of business, and add in a penalty for hitting 0 hit points such as fatigue.
Rework rest system, death and dying. reduce hit points drastically after level 10.
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Remove drow, tieflings and dragonborn from core rulebook
Biggest change other than those things would be work modular options for tweak your game experience and remove forgotten realms as the assumed setting
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Any particular reason why? To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right. It solves so many scaling problems.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 28, 2021, 01:18:12 PM
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Any particular reason why? To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right. It solves so many scaling problems.
I found it does the opposite, that it just ensures that some spells are just completely worthless because theyre not worth the higher level slots. As caster level instead it allows your lower level spells to be worth more than just utility spells
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 28, 2021, 01:18:12 PM
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Any particular reason why? To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right. It solves so many scaling problems.
I agree with Ocule, but I'd be interested to hear why you think otherwise.
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Reduce the number of magic using classes drastically, to probably just the wizard and cleric as a first order of business, and add in a penalty for hitting 0 hit points such as fatigue.
Rework rest system, death and dying. reduce hit points drastically after level 10.
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Remove drow, tieflings and dragonborn from core rulebook
Biggest change other than those things would be work modular options for tweak your game experience and remove forgotten realms as the assumed setting
Translation - make it as much like the OSR as possible so the 5e audience reaction will be to ignore it completely.
Like it or not there are people with different preferences in terms of RPGs and the OSR has the demo that wants what you suggest covered extremely well already. The 5e demo isn't interested in Only Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings and Only Fighters, Thieves, Clerics and Magic-Users. They LIKE the tieflings and dragonborn and warlocks and bards and druids and sorcerers.
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 01:36:57 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 28, 2021, 01:18:12 PM
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Any particular reason why? To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right. It solves so many scaling problems.
I found it does the opposite, that it just ensures that some spells are just completely worthless because theyre not worth the higher level slots. As caster level instead it allows your lower level spells to be worth more than just utility spells
The problem with scaling to caster level is it ensures the quadratic spellcaster problem, each level isn't just adding more slots, its making each of the slots better at the same time. Its hard to make non-spellcasting classes keep up with that level of quadratic growth.
I'd say the real issue the amount of scaling from using a higher level slot for a lower level spell isn't sufficient; a third-level spell used in a 5th level slot should perform like a 5th level spell, not like a 3rd level spell plus two extra dice of damage.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 28, 2021, 01:57:35 PM
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Reduce the number of magic using classes drastically, to probably just the wizard and cleric as a first order of business, and add in a penalty for hitting 0 hit points such as fatigue.
Rework rest system, death and dying. reduce hit points drastically after level 10.
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Remove drow, tieflings and dragonborn from core rulebook
Biggest change other than those things would be work modular options for tweak your game experience and remove forgotten realms as the assumed setting
Translation - make it as much like the OSR as possible so the 5e audience reaction will be to ignore it completely.
Like it or not there are people with different preferences in terms of RPGs and the OSR has the demo that wants what you suggest covered extremely well already. The 5e demo isn't interested in Only Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings and Only Fighters, Thieves, Clerics and Magic-Users. They LIKE the tieflings and dragonborn and warlocks and bards and druids and sorcerers.
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 01:36:57 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 28, 2021, 01:18:12 PM
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Any particular reason why? To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right. It solves so many scaling problems.
I found it does the opposite, that it just ensures that some spells are just completely worthless because theyre not worth the higher level slots. As caster level instead it allows your lower level spells to be worth more than just utility spells
The problem with scaling to caster level is it ensures the quadratic spellcaster problem, each level isn't just adding more slots, its making each of the slots better at the same time. Its hard to make non-spellcasting classes keep up with that level of quadratic growth.
I'd say the real issue the amount of scaling from using a higher level slot for a lower level spell isn't sufficient; a third-level spell used in a 5th level slot should perform like a 5th level spell, not like a 3rd level spell plus two extra dice of damage.
Making spells stronger for each level would also be an acceptable option. I really just wanted 5e to be more modular, a basic frame that you can add new mechanics on top of in order to add more flexibility. There are too many things that just kind of got baked into the core game or presented as optional rules when they really arent all that optional. It's the assumed setting that bothers me. Feats? Technically optional but all the content sort of assumes that you're using them. Skills? Pretty rigid list of skills. Rests? Sure we have alternate rest mechanics but it breaks several class mechanics.
Like savage worlds is a good example of modularity done right. Its easy to plug subsystems or tweak how damage is handled without causing issues with other mechanics based on those assumptions.
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 01:36:57 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 28, 2021, 01:18:12 PM
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 12:36:19 PM
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.
Any particular reason why? To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right. It solves so many scaling problems.
I found it does the opposite, that it just ensures that some spells are just completely worthless because theyre not worth the higher level slots. As caster level instead it allows your lower level spells to be worth more than just utility spells
Gotcha. We may be looking at it from different angles, implementation versus design. From a design perspective, I think spell slot scaling works better, because it doesn't pick up all the baggage and edge cases that D&D has dealt with in the past. However, once the design is switched from caster level scaling to slot scaling, it does require some spells to have a different implementation.
It's pretty obvious on things like fireball,where you just look at what you want the damages to be at 5th level and then how you want it to scale to some cap. There's a direct translation from caster level to slot level (possibly adjusted for different scaling and caps for the new system). When the spell affects multiple targets or has increased duration or range by caster level, that's not always the case.
I addressed this in my own system by having such utility spells take on multiple dimension as the slot scales. For example, my analog of "cure light wounds" has a modest increase in effect AND affects multiple targets as the slot increases. You could also handle it by having effects increase exponentially every 2 levels (which is roughly what the standard spells do), though I find it more interesting to make the spells more varied.
So where you have "tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level", I would say instead to revise utility spells to be worth casting at the higher slots.
Finally, I don't think every spell necessary needs to scale all the way up. If a 1st level spell tops out as useful around 4th or 5th level slot, I'm OK with that. But I agree that it does need to be worth casting over multiple slot levels in order for such a system to work.
Thanks for the explanations, I can see where you're coming from regarding caster vs. spell level scaling.
Yeah right now just as written damage spells aren't really worth a higher level slot because they really don't scale well. Though I could also make the argument that magic damage in general isn't really all that great especially with the Twitter errata that nerfed evokers.
Also i do kind of agree with the linear fighter and quadratic wizard to some extent. I mean magic is basically hacking the laws of reality. Like an evocation wizard is like a Fister or artillery compared to infantry. One you need to fight, the other just lays waste. Even a low level wizard is like a grenadier. So you drop even a 5thlevel fireball I'm expecting chunky salsa
Re: Caster Level vs Slot Level.
Remove all slots and instead use magic points, the caster gets a number of them at chargen, tied to one attribute (INT, WIS, CHA) depending on the type of caster. Every level the caster gains a number of points.
Spells cost points
The caster doesn't need to prepare spells for the day, casting at will.
The more points spent at casting the more powerful the spell (choose one : nrange, duration, DMG, etc)
The caster can cast spells that cost more than his current spell points by powering them with their life force. This price is paid upfront (or not), so the caster can die mid casting if not careful. If the cost doesn't kill the caster it does give him exaustion.
The caster still needs to learn spells, but once learned he can use them at will.
Exception to the last part are Clerics, they don't need to learn spells since they don't use spells but divine intervention (miracles), so they pray to their deity and the deity grants it (or not).
It scales very well and it solves the dilema of lower level spells not being useful anymore.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 28, 2021, 02:50:34 PM
Re: Caster Level vs Slot Level.
Remove all slots and instead use magic points, the caster gets a number of them at chargen, tied to one attribute (INT, WIS, CHA) depending on the type of caster. Every level the caster gains a number of points.
Spells cost points
The caster doesn't need to prepare spells for the day, casting at will.
The more points spent at casting the more powerful the spell (choose one : nrange, duration, DMG, etc)
The caster can cast spells that cost more than his current spell points by powering them with their life force. This price is paid upfront (or not), so the caster can die mid casting if not careful. If the cost doesn't kill the caster it does give him exaustion.
The caster still needs to learn spells, but once learned he can use them at will.
Exception to the last part are Clerics, they don't need to learn spells since they don't use spells but divine intervention (miracles), so they pray to their deity and the deity grants it (or not).
It scales very well and it solves the dilema of lower level spells not being useful anymore.
I mean yeah I usually prefer spell points or roll to cast style magic over slots. Would it still be dnd at that point?
I would say spell points scale well in some systems, but not those that cover as wide a power range as D&D. There are things you can do with the point costs and math to alleviate some of the issues (even in D&D) but there are some advantages to discrete slots that spell points can't easily replicate.
Now, if you want to compress the spell levels and adjust the level at which certain spells are cast, then things get a little easier. You'll need to chop off cantrips (at least in the spell point economy) and remove things like meteor swarm, wish, and prismatic spray entirely. More than one D&D clone has gone exactly that route, with any spells above about 5th to 6th level becoming non-standard and only something cast through alternate means. Alternately, you can inflate the spell points a little so that a typical first level spell takes 3-5 points, and adjust accordingly, and still keep the cantrips at 1 point. Meanwhile, things like Invisibility becomes at least 3rd level and some of the utility spells move down a level. That's one place where spell points shine, in that it gets easier to manage the lower-level defensive spells versus the attacks.
You'll still have the issue that past a certain point, lots of low level spells are just more valuable than the equivalent spell point cost of higher level spells, unless you make the higher level spell insane game enders. You'll still have handling issues with spell points and analysis paralysis during play with which spell to cast. Though in fairness, you've got different issues in a D&D slot system instead.
For a hybrid approach that would work fairly well with D&D, I'd have about 3 to 4 separate pools of spell points. Let's call them Lesser, Major, and Greater. Then Cantrips have a separate 4th pool or fit into Lesser depending on how you want the math to work. Say Lesser is Cantrip to 2nd level, Major is 3rd to 5th level, and Greater is 6+, with grossly inflated costs as the level goes past 6th. Never let pools cross, no matter what. You'll still have a few spell point design issues, but they will be around the margins and aren't insurmountable. You've still got spell levels. They just govern how many points a spell costs within its pool. (That's for a nod to traditional D&D. If you don't care about that aspect, then you drop the levels entirely and give spell direct point costs, which means you can tweak spells that are somewhat weak or powerful accordingly.)
Quote from: Ocule on July 28, 2021, 02:05:45 PM
Making spells stronger for each level would also be an acceptable option. I really just wanted 5e to be more modular, a basic frame that you can add new mechanics on top of in order to add more flexibility. There are too many things that just kind of got baked into the core game or presented as optional rules when they really arent all that optional.
The issue here is that it is a lot harder for most people to create the things you want to leave out on their own and the largest share of rpg groups will never use anything outside of the initial release.
Basically, if you want to reach a broad audience, you NEED a lot of those options in your core books, even if you'd rather not use them yourself. Your potential audience will have moved on if they have to wait a year for a supplement to allow them to create the character they want. 4E launched without even all the core races and classes from 3e and, even though they all got released within 9 months, 4E never heard the end of it for not having them from the word go or that you had to buy a supplement to get them (similarly, 5e lost a lot of 4E fans by dropping the Warlord class).
You want irony? I only play humans in every campaign I've ever participated in. I generally feel that probably 99% of other fantasy races are just charicatures of certain types of humans and I'd rather have the full range to work with.
Yet the system I've written includes probably one of the largest assortments of playable species options I've seen outside of Rifts. Why? Because my audience is more than just me and I wanted to be sure people could create a version of anything from all the prior editions of D&D in the system using just the core rules.
If the GM doesn't want a world with playable sapient golems, it's easy for any GM using my system to just say "no golem PCs." It would be a lot harder for a GM, particularly a new one, to have to create a golem race from scratch, particularly if the only examples to compare it with are humans and the near human dwarves, elves and halflings. They'll probably just decide it's too much work and just drop the idea of having sapient golems in their world.
The same goes for classes; one of the primary reasons for my breaking the D&D class concepts into two parts (combat class and non-combat background) was because the resulting mix-and-match allowed a LOT more D&D class concepts to be expressed with a smaller page count.
The nature-themed options of the barbarian background can be applied to a daring berserker fighter w. the ravager path for a D&D barbarian, to a swift wary fighter with the striker path for a D&D ranger or to a Mystic for a D&D druid. The religious background that provides non-combat divine spells can make a paladin (strong fighter), a cleric (theurge) or even the non-combat "cloistered cleric" variant from earlier editions (with the mastermind class).
Between all the class and background combos you can get close to even the most obscure classes from past editions of D&D.
And again it's easier to remove certain options; ex. No gadgeteer class; than to add them. A GM could absolutely restrict class/background options down to, say, "the only options allowed are military strong tactical fighters with the striker path (OSR Fighter), outlaw swift daring fighters with the brigand path (OSR thief), religious militant theurges with the benedictor path (OSR cleric) and arcanist lore wizards with the interdictor path (OSR magic-user)."
I've even got an optional rule for pre-set features in place of having player choices at every level because it's easier to restrict than create your own.
You can say you prefer a modular system, but unless the system has modules ready to plug in, it's just an empty toolbox. Likewise, billing something as a complete toolbox, but then requiring them to buy additional tools to actually make it functional is going to see customers turn to the guy offering an actual complete set even if some of your tools are better built.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 26, 2021, 08:50:23 PM
What the tin says, if YOU were developing a non-woke "clone" of D&D 5e what would you change, what would you leave as is what would you import from other games?
For one. Remove the bisexual coloring used in the art.
Quote from: dkabq on July 28, 2021, 06:54:17 AM
So to me it seems that the key to making 5E not "woke" is to not play it as "woke".
Pretty much.
The few places where woke actually impacts systems and gameplay (as opposed to fluff or art in the books), it can get annoying... but still something you can ignore.
Like changing race to "ancestry" or "lineage" or (my preferred change if you need one) "species". They're all still "race", and mean the same thing mechanically and thematically, so... whatever.
Another good example is "orcs and drow are coded for black people, we need to make them all morally diverse, and then make everyone else morally diverse too, and then do away with morals". Knock yourself out. In my games, if I want evil orcs there's evil orcs. If I want good drow, there's good drow. I'm the most dangerous kind of gamer: I'm one that can think outside the rulebook.
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on July 30, 2021, 01:05:01 PM
Like changing race to "ancestry" or "lineage" or (my preferred change if you need one) "species". They're all still "race", and mean the same thing mechanically and thematically, so... whatever.
I use "species" in my system because not every option is even humanoid (or organic), but I'll admit to sometimes thinking about yet changing it to "ancestry" simply because the other two elements of a character in my system are Background and Class and being able to call it "the ABCs of character creation" would be rather pithy.
To me "species" implies we're talking about different shades of related things, like a Siberian Tiger vs. Bengali Tiger. When races might be humans, plant-things, and entities from another plane of existence, it's pretty odd to use the word species to categorize things that might not have any common ancestor.
It's also colored by a formality/scientific classification that's probably not appropriate for most fantasy worlds. YMMV.
Quote from: Zelen on July 30, 2021, 03:57:30 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 30, 2021, 02:07:32 PM
I use "species" in my system because not every option is even humanoid (or organic), but I'll admit to sometimes thinking about yet changing it to "ancestry" simply because the other two elements of a character in my system are Background and Class and being able to call it "the ABCs of character creation" would be rather pithy.
To me "species" implies we're talking about different shades of related things, like a Siberian Tiger vs. Bengali Tiger. When races might be humans, plant-things, and entities from another plane of existence, it's pretty odd to use the word species to categorize things that might not have any common ancestor.
It's also colored by a formality/scientific classification that's probably not appropriate for most fantasy worlds. YMMV.
Yeah, I also don't like species for fantasy games - though I don't think species implies any degree of relation. There are species of algae as well as species of gorilla. Though "race" also doesn't fit when one is talking about completely different category of beings like warforged or other creature types.
I am coming to like "ancestry" for class-based games -- because ancestry is about how you were born or created, background is about how you grew up, and class is about what you are trained in as an adult. That fits nicely as ABC and it is clear from the term that ancestry is about inherent qualities.
Quote from: Zelen on July 30, 2021, 03:57:30 PM
It's also colored by a formality/scientific classification that's probably not appropriate for most fantasy worlds. YMMV.
Ironically, we can trace the use of the word species back far further into history (the first use we can find in writing dates to Aristotle, so the 300's BC at least) than we can trace the use of Race (which didn't emerge until the AD 1600-1700's in conjunction with widespread colonization).
If anything, the term race is utterly anachronistic to anything presenting itself as vaguely medieval while species is something medieval peoples would be familiar with. The actual terms that would most apply would be Clan, Kin or perhaps Genus... but not "race." But to quote the TV Trope, "Reality is Unrealistic."
For the record too; my system's default setting is very "Thundarr the Barbarian" inspired and arcane magic is heavily implied to be of the "sufficiently advanced technology" variety (arcane in this case being the original definition; i.e. "something that is poorly understood by all but the experts in the field")... so species makes a lot of sense for either reason (actual historic usage and implied sci-fi elements for some magic).
Quote from: jhkim on July 30, 2021, 04:11:17 PM
Yeah, I also don't like species for fantasy games - though I don't think species implies any degree of relation. There are species of algae as well as species of gorilla.
I have to note the irony in that the examples you gave of using species demonstrate the exact issue I called out.
Quote from: jhkim on July 30, 2021, 04:11:17 PM
I am coming to like "ancestry" for class-based games -- because ancestry is about how you were born or created, background is about how you grew up, and class is about what you are trained in as an adult. That fits nicely as ABC and it is clear from the term that ancestry is about inherent qualities.
Personally, and this might just be me, when I read "Ancestry" my brain immediately jumps to thinking this is a background like "Noble," "Nomad," "Merchant", etc. While it expresses a certain aspect of a character, to me it doesn't really feel like it expresses the same inherent properties nor does it capture that the attributes of "Ancestry" are common to a given set of people, rather than an individual.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 30, 2021, 05:03:43 PM
Ironically, we can trace the use of the word species back far further into history (the first use we can find in writing dates to Aristotle, so the 300's BC at least) than we can trace the use of Race (which didn't emerge until the AD 1600-1700's in conjunction with widespread colonization).
Yeah, undoubtedly. We could also use Nation/Nationality, a word with a similar provenance. In either case I lean against it because of issues with the current audience's likely usage of the words.
Of course the specific word a pretty nitpicky issue regardless. I'm opposed to reinventing the lexicon by default, and particularly because (pertinent to the thread) the intent behind changing the word "Race" has been political in nature.
Quote from: Zelen on July 30, 2021, 07:28:31 PM
Of course the specific word a pretty nitpicky issue regardless. I'm opposed to reinventing the lexicon by default, and particularly because (pertinent to the thread) the intent behind changing the word "Race" has been political in nature.
It may be political for some, but for me it's just that I've got playable dragons, sprites, centaurs, plant-people, talking animals, etc.
I can see "race" when your list is human, dwarf, elf, halfling, gnome and various halfbreeds thereof (including half-orcs)... those are all not just humans, but, as old-school D&D notes, demi-humans (i.e. in terms of modern genetics they're probably subspecies of a common homonid ancestor).
It just doesn't feel right for me though. Species doesn't even feel right because there are golems on my list. Ancestry or lineage could
almost work as the backstory of the golems has them manufactured as part of specific historical lines.
Probably the best term for them all now that I think about it is probably "Kind" (i.e. humankind, golemkind, dragonkind, etc.).
I have used "blood" for a partial replacement of "race" in a fantasy setting a couple of times. However, in those settings, there was a certain amount of fantastical genetics underlying things, with "blood" deliberately selected to be somewhat of a vague reference to it that the common people would use. No doubt the more advanced entities involved has their more technical terms.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 30, 2021, 08:44:07 PM
It may be political for some, but for me it's just that I've got playable dragons, sprites, centaurs, plant-people, talking animals, etc.
I can see "race" when your list is human, dwarf, elf, halfling, gnome and various halfbreeds thereof (including half-orcs)... those are all not just humans, but, as old-school D&D notes, demi-humans (i.e. in terms of modern genetics they're probably subspecies of a common homonid ancestor).
It just doesn't feel right for me though. Species doesn't even feel right because there are golems on my list. Ancestry or lineage could almost work as the backstory of the golems has them manufactured as part of specific historical lines.
Probably the best term for them all now that I think about it is probably "Kind" (i.e. humankind, golemkind, dragonkind, etc.).
To me "race" doesn't have any necessary implication of genetic relatedness. It seems reasonable to use race if playing a dragon, a minotaur, or a human. It's a pretty big conceptual bucket.
The only exception I'd put to that is artificial/created entities lack a requisite sense of "group." It's nonsensical to conceive of a "race" that doesn't share any common attributes. So if every Golem were different, then there'd be a problem. However, this objection is pretty academic, because even with a purely point-buy race, the salient shared characteristic then might become the lack of shared characteristic.
I think the woke ideal is to lean 100% nurture and 0% nature. That's why they claim your gender is assigned by your society at birth and your genetics are therefore unimportant. The same applies to their view on race, which is why you can now (as of the Tasha's book) play a dwarf with elf racial abilities or vice versa.
To me this view is nonsensical, because even if I were to have been adopted by Sherpas, I can't simply pick up the genetic modifications I need to survive at high altitudes without sickness. These things take generations to develop.
Quote from: mightybrain on July 31, 2021, 09:07:19 PM
I think the woke ideal is to lean 100% nurture and 0% nature. That's why they claim your gender is assigned by your society at birth and your genetics are therefore unimportant. The same applies to their view on race, which is why you can now (as of the Tasha's book) play a dwarf with elf racial abilities or vice versa.
To me this view is nonsensical, because even if I were to have been adopted by Sherpas, I can't simply pick up the genetic modifications I need to survive at high altitudes without sickness. These things take generations to develop.
Bingo. The concept of
tabula rasa when it comes to human characteristics is the culprit. I'd love to
identify as 6'4", but genetics is a little too powerful, and nature always wins...
Quote from: mightybrain on July 31, 2021, 09:07:19 PM
I think the woke ideal is to lean 100% nurture and 0% nature. That's why they claim your gender is assigned by your society at birth and your genetics are therefore unimportant. The same applies to their view on race, which is why you can now (as of the Tasha's book) play a dwarf with elf racial abilities or vice versa.
To me this view is nonsensical, because even if I were to have been adopted by Sherpas, I can't simply pick up the genetic modifications I need to survive at high altitudes without sickness. These things take generations to develop.
Not even that. The ideal is you can choose what you want to be on a whim. This isn't 100% nurture, 0% nature, it's 0% nurture, 0% nature, 100% imagined identity. I heard you like fantasy roleplaying, so I put fantasy roleplaying in your fantasy roleplaying.
To switch gears back towards 5e, I find the layout of the 5e PHB pretty odd. Does anyone else agree?
The book describes some basics for how TTRPGs/D&D work, and then asks you to think of a character. Then the first thing the book does is dump you into a deep list of Races & Classes. Only after you wade through 100 pages of crunch does the game introduce the idea of creating a backstory. Then there's a ton of stuff on equipment, multiclassing, feats, and only after we've waded through all that do we get to character attributes.
I get that in a certain sense with 5e, background story & character attributes aren't really all that important, and they are mentioned briefly beforehand, but I find it strange to dump players headfirst into Race & Class selection.
Quote from: Zelen on August 01, 2021, 03:10:14 AM
To switch gears back towards 5e, I find the layout of the 5e PHB pretty odd. Does anyone else agree?
The book describes some basics for how TTRPGs/D&D work, and then asks you to think of a character. Then the first thing the book does is dump you into a deep list of Races & Classes. Only after you wade through 100 pages of crunch does the game introduce the idea of creating a backstory. Then there's a ton of stuff on equipment, multiclassing, feats, and only after we've waded through all that do we get to character attributes.
I get that in a certain sense with 5e, background story & character attributes aren't really all that important, and they are mentioned briefly beforehand, but I find it strange to dump players headfirst into Race & Class selection.
I'll agree with the sentiment. Lord knows I didn't use it for my own book.
To me a logical layout is;
- Introduction & Basic Rules
- Universal Rules (skills, movement, etc.)
- Character Creation (concept, player motivation, character motivation)
- Kind (my equivalent of Race; so what you're born as)
- Background (who you are outside of adventuring)
- Class (your combat/adventuring abilities)
- Equipment
Basically, all the rules you really need in play are in the first 30-40 pages. Everything else is only needed when building/leveling up a character and will be on your character sheet. Character creation is laid out in the order of concept, what you are, how you were raised, how you were trained to adventure and what equipment you use to do it.
I took a similar approach to the GM material;
- Setting up the campaign (concepts; silly or serious, heroic or horror, restrictions/house rules).
- Building the setting
- Building NPCs (and custom opponents)
- Building Adventures
- Adventure Rewards
- Pre-Gen Opponents (i.e. the Monster Manual)
So again... concept, the world, characters who live in the world, things that happen in the world, rewards for PCs who get involved in the world and finally an appendix of opponents to pit the PCs against if you don't want to use the NPC section to build your own.
Quote from: mightybrain on July 31, 2021, 09:07:19 PM
I think the woke ideal is to lean 100% nurture and 0% nature. That's why they claim your gender is assigned by your society at birth and your genetics are therefore unimportant. The same applies to their view on race, which is why you can now (as of the Tasha's book) play a dwarf with elf racial abilities or vice versa.
To me this view is nonsensical, because even if I were to have been adopted by Sherpas, I can't simply pick up the genetic modifications I need to survive at high altitudes without sickness. These things take generations to develop.
This is true ... for
genetic differences. Stuff like "Dwarves are resistant to magic" falls into that category. But it seems to me that the majority of racial characteristics described in RPGs (and I'd wager 5e included, but I haven't read it) are not genetic but social. "Dwarves are experts at working stone," or "elves learn to shoot bows real good," or "hobbits like parties."
Since I don't buy into the notion that elves are
born shooting a longbow real good, I don't have any problem with learned behavioral traits being associated with the society -- the nurture as it were -- as opposed to the bloodline, or nature.
duplicate
Quote from: Zalman on August 01, 2021, 10:03:56 AM
Quote from: mightybrain on July 31, 2021, 09:07:19 PM
I think the woke ideal is to lean 100% nurture and 0% nature. That's why they claim your gender is assigned by your society at birth and your genetics are therefore unimportant. The same applies to their view on race, which is why you can now (as of the Tasha's book) play a dwarf with elf racial abilities or vice versa.
To me this view is nonsensical, because even if I were to have been adopted by Sherpas, I can't simply pick up the genetic modifications I need to survive at high altitudes without sickness. These things take generations to develop.
This is true ... for genetic differences. Stuff like "Dwarves are resistant to magic" falls into that category. But it seems to me that the majority of racial characteristics described in RPGs (and I'd wager 5e included, but I haven't read it) are not genetic but social. "Dwarves are experts at working stone," or "elves learn to shoot bows real good," or "hobbits like parties."
Since I don't buy into the notion that elves are born shooting a longbow real good, I don't have any problem with learned behavioral traits being associated with the society -- the nurture as it were -- as opposed to the bloodline, or nature.
How much of an elf's excellence with bows is based on training, and how much on the super-human dexterity that is genetic?
Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 01, 2021, 12:26:35 PM
How much of an elf's excellence with bows is based on training, and how much on the super-human dexterity that is genetic?
That question would make more sense to me in a game that didn't have a separate vector for measuring dexterity.
Quote from: Zalman on August 01, 2021, 12:33:29 PM
Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 01, 2021, 12:26:35 PM
How much of an elf's excellence with bows is based on training, and how much on the super-human dexterity that is genetic?
That question would make more sense to me in a game that didn't have a separate vector for measuring dexterity.
And gives elves +2 to it? And what is to say there is not a non-attribute defined hand-eye coordination advantage that comes into play with longbows that elves get?
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 26, 2021, 08:50:23 PM
What the tin says, if YOU were developing a non-woke "clone" of D&D 5e what would you change, what would you leave as is what would you import from other games?
Well you have to put this back in.
(https://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/random_harlot_table.jpg)
Trying to discern delineation of genetics vs. culture is very much in the weeds, particularly given that, at least as far as PHB is concerned, the setting is implied rather than defined.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 01, 2021, 09:12:52 AM
Quote from: Zelen on August 01, 2021, 03:10:14 AM
To switch gears back towards 5e, I find the layout of the 5e PHB pretty odd. Does anyone else agree?
The book describes some basics for how TTRPGs/D&D work, and then asks you to think of a character. Then the first thing the book does is dump you into a deep list of Races & Classes. Only after you wade through 100 pages of crunch does the game introduce the idea of creating a backstory. Then there's a ton of stuff on equipment, multiclassing, feats, and only after we've waded through all that do we get to character attributes.
I get that in a certain sense with 5e, background story & character attributes aren't really all that important, and they are mentioned briefly beforehand, but I find it strange to dump players headfirst into Race & Class selection.
I'll agree with the sentiment. Lord knows I didn't use it for my own book.
To me a logical layout is;
- Introduction & Basic Rules
- Universal Rules (skills, movement, etc.)
- Character Creation (concept, player motivation, character motivation)
- Kind (my equivalent of Race; so what you're born as)
- Background (who you are outside of adventuring)
- Class (your combat/adventuring abilities)
- Equipment
Basically, all the rules you really need in play are in the first 30-40 pages. Everything else is only needed when building/leveling up a character and will be on your character sheet. Character creation is laid out in the order of concept, what you are, how you were raised, how you were trained to adventure and what equipment you use to do it.
I took a similar approach to the GM material;
- Setting up the campaign (concepts; silly or serious, heroic or horror, restrictions/house rules).
- Building the setting
- Building NPCs (and custom opponents)
- Building Adventures
- Adventure Rewards
- Pre-Gen Opponents (i.e. the Monster Manual)
So again... concept, the world, characters who live in the world, things that happen in the world, rewards for PCs who get involved in the world and finally an appendix of opponents to pit the PCs against if you don't want to use the NPC section to build your own.
While both of you are sorta, kinda correct you forget one thing:
The order is what it is to help you make a character and start playing WITHOUT having to read ALL the rules. Now this might be bad design or an error seeing how many players don't know the very basics of the rules. But that's the intent behind this design.
As for Backgrounds... I'm using them in one of my games: Social, Laboral, School. But those are tables to roll on (or IF the GM allows to choose from), not 15 pages of backstory. This is one of the things I would cut from 5e.
Quote from: Zalman on August 01, 2021, 12:33:29 PM
Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 01, 2021, 12:26:35 PM
How much of an elf's excellence with bows is based on training, and how much on the super-human dexterity that is genetic?
That question would make more sense to me in a game that didn't have a separate vector for measuring dexterity.
Here's the thing: You were born with certain advantage, lets say you have more fast twitch muscles than other races. This would give you and advantage, partly this can be overcome with some training.
But no matter how hard your Halfling trains he will never be as strong/fast as a strong/fast human. Because genetics.
This is what the racial moddifiers represent.
Something I would include in 5e
Quote from: Zelen on August 01, 2021, 01:09:07 PM
Trying to discern delineation of genetics vs. culture is very much in the weeds, particularly given that, at least as far as PHB is concerned, the setting is implied rather than defined.
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
On the other hand limiting class choices for Halflings and leaving out Hunters, Warriors and other classes makes zero sense, since they would need those to survive, unless ALL halflings live inside other society, made off humans/Elves or Dwarves that can fill those roles better.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:39:52 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 01, 2021, 09:12:52 AM
Quote from: Zelen on August 01, 2021, 03:10:14 AM
To switch gears back towards 5e, I find the layout of the 5e PHB pretty odd. Does anyone else agree?
The book describes some basics for how TTRPGs/D&D work, and then asks you to think of a character. Then the first thing the book does is dump you into a deep list of Races & Classes. Only after you wade through 100 pages of crunch does the game introduce the idea of creating a backstory. Then there's a ton of stuff on equipment, multiclassing, feats, and only after we've waded through all that do we get to character attributes.
I get that in a certain sense with 5e, background story & character attributes aren't really all that important, and they are mentioned briefly beforehand, but I find it strange to dump players headfirst into Race & Class selection.
I'll agree with the sentiment. Lord knows I didn't use it for my own book.
To me a logical layout is;
- Introduction & Basic Rules
- Universal Rules (skills, movement, etc.)
- Character Creation (concept, player motivation, character motivation)
- Kind (my equivalent of Race; so what you're born as)
- Background (who you are outside of adventuring)
- Class (your combat/adventuring abilities)
- Equipment
Basically, all the rules you really need in play are in the first 30-40 pages. Everything else is only needed when building/leveling up a character and will be on your character sheet. Character creation is laid out in the order of concept, what you are, how you were raised, how you were trained to adventure and what equipment you use to do it.
I took a similar approach to the GM material;
- Setting up the campaign (concepts; silly or serious, heroic or horror, restrictions/house rules).
- Building the setting
- Building NPCs (and custom opponents)
- Building Adventures
- Adventure Rewards
- Pre-Gen Opponents (i.e. the Monster Manual)
So again... concept, the world, characters who live in the world, things that happen in the world, rewards for PCs who get involved in the world and finally an appendix of opponents to pit the PCs against if you don't want to use the NPC section to build your own.
While both of you are sorta, kinda correct you forget one thing:
The order is what it is to help you make a character and start playing WITHOUT having to read ALL the rules. Now this might be bad design or an error seeing how many players don't know the very basics of the rules. But that's the intent behind this design.
As for Backgrounds... I'm using them in one of my games: Social, Laboral, School. But those are tables to roll on (or IF the GM allows to choose from), not 15 pages of backstory. This is one of the things I would cut from 5e.
And you answered your own objection. Education 101 is you don't throw people into the deep end if you want retention.
D&D-level characters are a mass of jargon terms and numbers to those not familiar with them (and the jargon isn't consistent across systems).
Drop a bunch of choices with a dozen different choices that mention the jargon before they've learned it and you get the first time player with a 17 Strength and 11 Intelligence choosing the wizard class because they wanted to do big attack spells and Strength mentioned it was important for dealing damage because all the rules covering the differences between melee, ranged and spell attacks and the attributes needed isn't covered until after the equipment section.
Sure, someone could help straighten them out. But my Red Box came from the aisle of a Children's Palace toy store an hour from my home and my game group was the rest of the pre-teens who had 40+ minute bus rides to and from school in rural Wisconsin.
Fortunately for me, the Red Box was AMAZING at teaching a complete noob like me all the rules through its solo adventures that covered each concept as it came up and how to DM in the DM booklet) but good luck with WotC-era D&D... their stuff is written mostly by wonks for wonks and so can get away with horrible organization, but probably lose a number of potential new customers by just presuming someone else will teach them the basics (probably an experienced DM... except those don't come from nowhere).
The other part of design is that such a split up mechanics into various corners of the book is it ignores that even the noobs are only noobs for so long; then the book's primary use is as a reference ("what's the rule for X?") and that means it needs to be easy to find what you're looking for.
Putting all the rules in one spot; basically the first 20% of the book in my case; makes reference a lot easier... if you hit character building you've gone too far.
I didn't just arrive at my chapter order by accident. I've done a lot of playtesting for it and one big part of that was turning print outs in binders over to people unfamiliar with the system to see how well they could navigate it without me having to tell them where to look.
Basic Rules first then character creation was definitely the one noobs grokked best... probably because characters are basically collections of numerical values for and exceptions to the basic rules, so to judge the numbers and exceptions you needed to know the basics to make the comparisons.
The majority of players also had a rough order of operations for character creation which is why my backgrounds (which are honestly more ongoing professions than just what you used to do) ended up coming before classes... i.e. how did an aristocrat become a sorcerer? vs. how did a sorcerer become an aristocrat?
A minority start with what I'd call a class in mind (ex. "I want a big sword" or "I wanna shoot lightning"), but once you address that out of order, the rest tends to fall into place in roughly the same order as the majorty; race/kind, background/profession, class/how they fight, equipment.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:47:48 PM
Quote from: Zelen on August 01, 2021, 01:09:07 PM
Trying to discern delineation of genetics vs. culture is very much in the weeds, particularly given that, at least as far as PHB is concerned, the setting is implied rather than defined.
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
On the other hand limiting class choices for Halflings and leaving out Hunters, Warriors and other classes makes zero sense, since they would need those to survive, unless ALL halflings live inside other society, made off humans/Elves or Dwarves that can fill those roles better.
That presumes that every dwarven settlement across 50 million square miles (presuming similar size and land to water ratios as Earth) places the same importance on honor or cultural oddities (which aren't really that odd) that taking things from other groups of people counts as thievery (ex. would a dwarf consider taking things from a tribe of orcs or giants they've been at war with for generations to be theft?).
My races/kind include no cultural elements in their stats for the simple reason that my default setting amounts to 0.05% of an Earth-like planet's land area and only has accurate maps for maybe 10% of the globe and the information on more distant lands is literally hundreds of years and a Cataclysm out of date.
To presume the dwarves 3000 miles away on the other side of a continent and at least one mountain range have an identical culture (or even share a mutually intelligible language) is ludicrous to my mind.
Which is also something that backgrounds are meant to address. If martial prowess is universal in a particular elven culture, then require your aristocrat, artisan, commoner, military and traveler background PCs to take the "Basic Training" boon so they're proficient with a couple of military weapons even if they don't take a class that provides it.
But the hippy nature elves a thousand miles away have no such pressure to learn sword fighting or longbowmanship... those weapons might not even be common in that region (their hunters train with spears and slings... but only their hunters).
Best of all is that you don't need a dozen subraces where the main difference is what weapons they're "naturally" proficient in. They're all elves, they just use different backgrounds.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 01, 2021, 06:31:29 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:47:48 PM
Quote from: Zelen on August 01, 2021, 01:09:07 PM
Trying to discern delineation of genetics vs. culture is very much in the weeds, particularly given that, at least as far as PHB is concerned, the setting is implied rather than defined.
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
On the other hand limiting class choices for Halflings and leaving out Hunters, Warriors and other classes makes zero sense, since they would need those to survive, unless ALL halflings live inside other society, made off humans/Elves or Dwarves that can fill those roles better.
That presumes that every dwarven settlement across 50 million square miles (presuming similar size and land to water ratios as Earth) places the same importance on honor or cultural oddities (which aren't really that odd) that taking things from other groups of people counts as thievery (ex. would a dwarf consider taking things from a tribe of orcs or giants they've been at war with for generations to be theft?).
My races/kind include no cultural elements in their stats for the simple reason that my default setting amounts to 0.05% of an Earth-like planet's land area and only has accurate maps for maybe 10% of the globe and the information on more distant lands is literally hundreds of years and a Cataclysm out of date.
To presume the dwarves 3000 miles away on the other side of a continent and at least one mountain range have an identical culture (or even share a mutually intelligible language) is ludicrous to my mind.
Which is also something that backgrounds are meant to address. If martial prowess is universal in a particular elven culture, then require your aristocrat, artisan, commoner, military and traveler background PCs to take the "Basic Training" boon so they're proficient with a couple of military weapons even if they don't take a class that provides it.
But the hippy nature elves a thousand miles away have no such pressure to learn sword fighting or longbowmanship... those weapons might not even be common in that region (their hunters train with spears and slings... but only their hunters).
Best of all is that you don't need a dozen subraces where the main difference is what weapons they're "naturally" proficient in. They're all elves, they just use different backgrounds.
So you postulate different cultures off the same race, which is fine and dandy, but you also postulate all races to be equal? Can Dwarves be wizards? If not why?
Elves: I don't use a dozen subraces, Elves are Elves and their culture makes them different, except of course theDökkálfar who separated so long ago from Elven society they are now a different race.
I also don't use half-anything, Elves can't interbreed with non-Elves and so on.
But, since I'm not gonna write a whole LotR to give to the GM/Players Racial stats are a thing and get used. Because different animals have different ways of surviving.
So, Dwarven society values honor above everything else, any Dwarf that doesn't gets ostracized and more likely than not can't reproduce. A Dwarven culture (or human, Elven, etc) that decides that stealing from the other races is okay I think would face serious opposition from the other races AND from the honorable Dwarfs.
IF the GM wants to postulate a new continent or island where Dwarfs are thiefs he can do so of course, b ut he'll have to deal with the possibility of the PCs or other NPCs reacting to that.
You must remember it's not a novel but a living world, where things happen even when the PCs aren't there.
Now, you can write your games as you like and I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm just arguing that from my POV somethings make (or not) sense.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:47:48 PM
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
But both are GM/player territory probably best served by home brew.
A Wizard might be seen as a fringe engineer of some sort experimenting with the same forces the elves use but in a Dwarvish way since magical donkeys would be nice to turn a millstone or something? Would be something of a cultural outsider weirdo like a mad scientist who is always on the edge of being on the outs but maybe stays on the right side of line. Might still be respectable even if he gives people a bad feeling about what he does down in his labs.
A Dwarven thief might be okay if he were a repo-man and a locksmith who had those skills but not really the same "profession" or criminal status. That assumes Dwarven concepts of contract and ownership are not all based on possession but on some codified legal right tied to a purchase or grant or formalized transfer.
Quote from: palaeomerus on August 01, 2021, 08:10:43 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:47:48 PM
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
But both are GM/player territory probably best served by home brew.
A Wizard might be seen as a fringe engineer of some sort experimenting with the same forces the elves use but in a Dwarvish way since magical donkeys would be nice to turn a millstone or something? Would be something of a cultural outsider weirdo like a mad scientist who is always on the edge of being on the outs but maybe stays on the right side of line. Might still be respectable even if he gives people a bad feeling about what he does down in his labs.
A Dwarven thief might be okay if he were a repo-man and a locksmith who had those skills but not really the same "profession" or criminal status. That assumes Dwarven concepts of contract and ownership are not all based on possession but on some codified legal right tied to a purchase or grant or formalized transfer.
But magical resistance isn't cultural but genetic. It's not Dwarves reject magic, it's they are magic resistant.
On the rest, yes, I agree, you can workaround the limitations by creating a new class with the same class skils but used in a different way or for different reasons.
Quote from: palaeomerus on August 01, 2021, 08:10:43 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:47:48 PM
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
But both are GM/player territory probably best served by home brew.
A Wizard might be seen as a fringe engineer of some sort experimenting with the same forces the elves use but in a Dwarvish way since magical donkeys would be nice to turn a millstone or something? Would be something of a cultural outsider weirdo like a mad scientist who is always on the edge of being on the outs but maybe stays on the right side of line. Might still be respectable even if he gives people a bad feeling about what he does down in his labs.
A Dwarven thief might be okay if he were a repo-man and a locksmith who had those skills but not really the same "profession" or criminal status. That assumes Dwarven concepts of contract and ownership are not all based on possession but on some codified legal right tied to a purchase or grant or formalized transfer.
Class skillsets are not necessarily occupations. I could easily see a dwarven rogue being a trapsmith and 'tiger team' director who helps test security measures in a fortress.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 08:20:47 PM
Quote from: palaeomerus on August 01, 2021, 08:10:43 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:47:48 PM
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
But both are GM/player territory probably best served by home brew.
A Wizard might be seen as a fringe engineer of some sort experimenting with the same forces the elves use but in a Dwarvish way since magical donkeys would be nice to turn a millstone or something? Would be something of a cultural outsider weirdo like a mad scientist who is always on the edge of being on the outs but maybe stays on the right side of line. Might still be respectable even if he gives people a bad feeling about what he does down in his labs.
A Dwarven thief might be okay if he were a repo-man and a locksmith who had those skills but not really the same "profession" or criminal status. That assumes Dwarven concepts of contract and ownership are not all based on possession but on some codified legal right tied to a purchase or grant or formalized transfer.
But magical resistance isn't cultural but genetic. It's not Dwarves reject magic, it's they are magic resistant.
On the rest, yes, I agree, you can workaround the limitations by creating a new class with the same class skils but used in a different way or for different reasons.
Not all versions of dwarves have magic resistance. It's not a feature of either the 4E or 5e dwarves (they resist poison though).
Likewise, wizard and sorcerer (and rogues/thief) have been class options for dwarves for more than 20 years now.
In my setting the common history is that the dwarves invented (not discovered, invented) arcane magic as a weapon to fight the Demon Empire and are some of its greatest practitioners in both wizardry and the forging of magic devices.
Also... why would you need a new class for dwarves skilled in working with locks and traps? Because the name on the tin says "thief?" Hell, using the Rogue as a merchant or well-schooled aristocrat (8+Int skill points per level and a very broad skill list makes them an ideal "skill monkey") was a thing even in 3.0e and 3.5e doubled down with things like skill tricks.
I mean, we are in a topic about making a clone of 5e and not an OSR system so the points above should just be taken as a matter of course.
My clone will have these ideas to start with
Ten-Level Scale - Cook everything down to a 10-level progression. Focus the design of the mechanics to meet this standard. Higher level play will be tighter but can be expanded to later. The assumptions would be at 10th level the gameplay would be the equivalent of 15+ in standard D&D.
Slow Progression - Make these levels matter. By condensing the power into 10-levels players should get maximum hang-time in the pocket of each level to make it matter in play.
+10 will be the max Class-bonus to do anything. Each class will emphasize it's "thing" whether its combat or magic, thievery etc. I'd design around this core idea. Where there is an exception to this - I would make these rare.
AC is now Defense = 10+ your To Hit bonus. Unless we're using the modified Combat system below which is Talislanta-based.
Armor - Absorbs damage. Scaled appropriately to weapon damage ranges.
HP - Flat progress. Everyone starts with Class Starting die plus Con bonus. Everytime you level you get a flat rate + con bonus. Optional rule might allow HP progress to be different per-class.
Small General Skill list - We don't need a gigantic skill list for the core. Expansion of the skill list should happen at the setting-level.
Task Resolution/Combat Scaling - Degrees of success. I'd cook into the system a Savage Worlds-inspired bonuses/penalty for degrees of success or failure with the rubric being that you only roll the die when it matters. There will be assumed basic levels of competency based on the skill-level of a PC/NPC based on their skill rating. This will allow non-casters to keep pace with ending fights as quickly as casters once the bonus effects of standard damage resolution + skill improvement reflects these outcomes in combat.
Magic - Modular. I'd propose two systems based on the what the GM wants in their game. For low-magic, I'd leverage the standard Skill System where spells are simply Skills that only caster classes can know. Non-casters might be able to learn them but they would lack the inherent bonuses of the Casters classes to pull off larger scale effects. I would leverage this "low-magic" system to be representative of Vancian Magic for traditionalists. For "High Magic" it would be effects based. I'd break it up into Schools which each have bonuses/penalties to a variety of effects (or modes). Then those basic modes would have a School-based effect modified by the Caster class's abilities. So for example a Necromancer and an Invoker might both have Bolt (as a mode) in their school. There would be a standard formula for damage for "Bolt" but the School/Caster Class would add other effects based on the School. A Necromantic bolt would do damage + Necromantic effects (which could be scaled up or down for Level/Class etc.) Same with the Invoker Bolt.
Technically you could have BOTH systems in play simultaneously to show "Primitive" magic vs. "Mageocracy" magic.
Possible Task Resolution mechanics
Modified Talislanta Task Resolution - 1d20. 1-5 is a Fail. 6-10 is a Partial Success. 11-20 Total Success. 21+ Critical Success. Opposed Checks take the opponents skill total as a penalty. For every increment of +5 over your opponents roll you get a bonus to <X> (damage, effect, etc) These can be heavily weighted at the Class/Skill level.
That's where I'd start my design process.
Edit: As for non-Wokeness. I'm not Woke. So I would not suffer this. Evil will exist. Races will exist. So will species. And differences will exist between them as a biological reality. Most of this can be handled at the setting-based level.
Few bits of direct propaganda. Otherwise it's not woke game in terms of mechanics or themes so I do not care about much more.
I'm not 5e fan, but it is not woke game. Woke are just out-of-game virtue signallings of WOTC.
If we talk about overall D&D dreams, then let's think:
- Scale down HP, more deadly, optimally options for more realistic and bloody combat with specific injuries and their specifc results
- Planetouched turned from specific quirky races into skins you can apply to any race but by raw rules you had to roll on how strong and how applied demonic/angelic/axiomatic/elemental taint shall be - with big random table for each outsider ancestry and possible results including on equal foot attribute bonuses and penalties, special spell like abilities, and visual changes randomly rolled no more guaranteed succub-cambion style. You can end with tiefling who's only demonic element is +2 Dex and no one without planar or magical help with recognize it, or you can end with unholy abomination with -4 to Wisdom. Play with fire, take your chances.
- Replace dragonborn with draconic kobolds.
- Make basic goblinoids and orcs as playable races without woke-washing their attributes or notions that most members of those will be rather bad.
- Kill all tengu in the setting 40 years before start of game in massive god-made genocide.
- Make cleric robe-priest low-melee as a basic, just as druid, current druid and cleric merges with paladin to make... let's say templar - sort of weaker Fighter with limited access to divine domains. (For Druid it will be simply Barbarian linked stronger to spiritualism/shamanism - muggle fighter from barbaric tribe will simply be berserker fighter.
- Make cleric lists of miracles strictly Sphere based. Make like 44 Divine Spheres each with list of miracles per sphere level. No more healing for clerics of god not interested in healing.
You choose which Sphere to up each level, you get your miracles based on this. Complexity of miracles scale with sphere level, their raw power with CL.
- Make warlock strictly pact based with pact and boon heavily inducing gameplay. Make chain warlocks like PF summoners, blade warlocks well like all those hexblades of old, and book warlocks closer to wizards in their attitude. Also vastly different power from each combination.
- Make wizard well more sciencey-occultey arcanist as it should be. He can create basically all powers cleric, warlock or anyone can, but on different levels as he is self-made man, and where gods and patrons supplement things he needs to go true it. So sure make him heal - but also make him roll Medicine check if he won't to heal and not give patient extra tumor because of it, and so on. While others call down magic from above, wizard build his magic from ground up. Lot of mixing spells, changing effects and so on. Alchemists and artificer should be kinds of wizard.
- Maybe include some shaman/medium spirit magic where magic is limited to spirits you can get, so you have vast numbers of options like wizard, but getting new spirits is always risky pain in ass, so where wizard can fail in his calculations, you can fail by giving Medium Kami of Granite Rock wrong kind of berries as sacrifice.
Quote
Quote
To me "species" implies we're talking about different shades of related things, like a Siberian Tiger vs. Bengali Tiger. When races might be humans, plant-things, and entities from another plane of existence, it's pretty odd to use the word species to categorize things that might not have any common ancestor.
QuoteTo me "race" doesn't have any necessary implication of genetic relatedness.
But.. .race if anything is in biology, or was... equivalent of subspecies - which basically replaced it as less problematic term.
So it's even narrower. Like dragons and humans are different species, but if you have humans and elves who crossbreed you could call them quite easily races of one species, or smth like this.
Also Siberian and Bengali tiger are ironically not even separate races, merely separate populations of one race Continental Tiger (as opposed to further removed Island Tiger now limited to Sumatra), very closely tied. (They could evolve in supspecies or even species with time of course).
That's why we talk about human races and not about how shark is of different race than elephant.
QuoteIt's also colored by a formality/scientific classification that's probably not appropriate for most fantasy worlds. YMMV.
I'm really not sure most fantasy used races as default. It's in many ways precisely D&D inheritance.
QuoteYeah, I also don't like species for fantasy games - though I don't think species implies any degree of relation. There are species of algae as well as species of gorilla.
But... gorillas and algae are related. Sure it's relation deep into precambrian era, but nonetheless.
QuotePersonally, and this might just be me, when I read "Ancestry" my brain immediately jumps to thinking this is a background like "Noble," "Nomad," "Merchant", etc. While it expresses a certain aspect of a character, to me it doesn't really feel like it expresses the same inherent properties nor does it capture that the attributes of "Ancestry" are common to a given set of people, rather than an individual.
That I can agree - Ancestry sometimes sounds like your social class/cultural inheritance stuff not necessarily race as in D&D
QuoteHow much of an elf's excellence with bows is based on training, and how much on the super-human dexterity that is genetic?
Elves are +2 to Dex in most games. Sure it's nice, but overall that's slightly better not superior uberdex.
QuoteSo, Dwarven society values honor above everything else, any Dwarf that doesn't gets ostracized and more likely than not can't reproduce. A Dwarven culture (or human, Elven, etc) that decides that stealing from the other races is okay I think would face serious opposition from the other races AND from the honorable Dwarfs.
I think Chris point is in his post-apo fantasy setting basically Fall of Bronze Age/Dark Ages/Black Death/Fallout mashup you don't have Dwarven Culture. You have like 400 Dwarven Cultures isolated from each other all across the world. Developing vastly different cultural traits with time.
Just like in living world you have shitload vastly different cultures of men.
Also even in classic D&D Dwarven world - you need Thieves, because Thief is not just class who steals - you really don't have to - but also more stealthy sneaky warrior and spy, able to disable traps, pick locks and so on. Something Dwarves would very much need to for instance reclaim ancient ruins of their kind (and as later skills are shaped also to install those traps or make good locks). So yeah. Of course there's always - also kinda classic option - that dwarves need halfling thieves any time they try to reclaim ruins of their ancestry because they are unable to pass through own locks and traps :P
QuoteBut magical resistance isn't cultural but genetic. It's not Dwarves reject magic, it's they are magic resistant.
Sure but Drows are also magic resistant while doing shitload of Magic.
There is no in D&D world assumption that magic resistance = magic inability.
That's I think Warhammer rule, but that's about it.
Also mythically speaking both Germanic dwarves were magical craftsmen, and modern protoRPG Tolkienian dwarves use magic as well. They are based on Semitic people. Underground Akkadian Hermetism mixed with Futhark Runic Goetia - that's dwarven magic, and anyone turning dwarves in drunken non-magical Scot miners can be eaten by woke crowd :P
[double]
Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 01, 2021, 12:58:30 PM
And what is to say there is not a non-attribute defined hand-eye coordination advantage that comes into play with longbows that elves get?
Sure, you can define a genetic advantage, but in a game where an attribute already defines "dexterity" and its effect on longbow use, that advantage would have to be something other than "dexterity" for me to feel like it's not bolted-on cruft. Maybe you want to say it's their eyesight or something. Fine with me if you can make it sound reasonably believable.
As far as I can tell from the SRD (my only source), 5e does take this into account, and no longer gives elves a random bonus to bow use beyond the increase in dexterity.
I could give Elves generally some Perception bonus which increase ranges of their shooting and spoting through not rolls themselves.
So low Dex Elf would still be weak shoter.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 02, 2021, 09:30:13 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 08:20:47 PM
Quote from: palaeomerus on August 01, 2021, 08:10:43 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 02:47:48 PM
This much is true to a point. Unless in the setting you define certain cultures, for instance: Dwarves are a hardy race, honorable to a fault, magic resistant,etc.
How would you justify now a Dwarven thief in good standing with Dwarven society? Or a Dwarven Wizard?
But both are GM/player territory probably best served by home brew.
A Wizard might be seen as a fringe engineer of some sort experimenting with the same forces the elves use but in a Dwarvish way since magical donkeys would be nice to turn a millstone or something? Would be something of a cultural outsider weirdo like a mad scientist who is always on the edge of being on the outs but maybe stays on the right side of line. Might still be respectable even if he gives people a bad feeling about what he does down in his labs.
A Dwarven thief might be okay if he were a repo-man and a locksmith who had those skills but not really the same "profession" or criminal status. That assumes Dwarven concepts of contract and ownership are not all based on possession but on some codified legal right tied to a purchase or grant or formalized transfer.
But magical resistance isn't cultural but genetic. It's not Dwarves reject magic, it's they are magic resistant.
On the rest, yes, I agree, you can workaround the limitations by creating a new class with the same class skils but used in a different way or for different reasons.
Not all versions of dwarves have magic resistance. It's not a feature of either the 4E or 5e dwarves (they resist poison though).
Likewise, wizard and sorcerer (and rogues/thief) have been class options for dwarves for more than 20 years now.
In my setting the common history is that the dwarves invented (not discovered, invented) arcane magic as a weapon to fight the Demon Empire and are some of its greatest practitioners in both wizardry and the forging of magic devices.
Also... why would you need a new class for dwarves skilled in working with locks and traps? Because the name on the tin says "thief?" Hell, using the Rogue as a merchant or well-schooled aristocrat (8+Int skill points per level and a very broad skill list makes them an ideal "skill monkey") was a thing even in 3.0e and 3.5e doubled down with things like skill tricks.
I mean, we are in a topic about making a clone of 5e and not an OSR system so the points above should just be taken as a matter of course.
Sorry, my bad I forgot the tendency to make all races equal and nothing more than humans in a ruber costume.
I would revert to having more differentiated races.
QuoteSorry, my bad I forgot the tendency to make all races equal and nothing more than humans in a ruber costume.
You can have variety of biologically different races and still make them culturally diverse. Otherwise maybe it's better to make them mystical manifestations of platonic ideas from Fey Realm.
But if they are biological demi-humans, then yes sort of they are short, bearded, ill tempered humans. Oh well.
Of course some aspects of it can be remedied if you have dunno only one place on planet when dwarves lives, then surely monoculturalism will be way more probable.
Quote from: Wrath of God on August 02, 2021, 12:40:21 PM
QuoteSorry, my bad I forgot the tendency to make all races equal and nothing more than humans in a ruber costume.
You can have variety of biologically different races and still make them culturally diverse. Otherwise maybe it's better to make them mystical manifestations of platonic ideas from Fey Realm.
But if they are biological demi-humans, then yes sort of they are short, bearded, ill tempered humans. Oh well.
This is my longstanding rule that there's not half-anything peeking out: No one can interbreed with other races.
In my games Elves, Dwarves, Halflings aren't demi-humans but humanoid. And I tend to forget that vanilla D&D isn't like that much less the "you can play a zany tiefling" 5e
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 02, 2021, 12:34:41 PM
Sorry, my bad I forgot the tendency to make all races equal and nothing more than humans in a ruber costume.
I would revert to having more differentiated races.
Sorry, my bad. I forgot some people are only upset at the SJWs because they took the gatekeeper for the hobby spot they wanted for themselves.
See how that passive aggressive bullshit solves absolutely nothing?
Just because two races/species/kinds can both work magic, pray to deities, fight or skulk about doesn't makes them "equal." It just means they can do very basic things common to most species in a fantasy setting... their racial traits influence how those things are expressed though if your system actually has any meat to it.
My elves, for example, are the astral servitors of the goddess of dreams/illusions who were trapped in the world by the Cataclysm. They have the spark of divinity inside them that makes them truly immortal (even if killed, they will reincarnate in the womb of an elven mother) and grants each of them a divine gift associated with those people often have in dreams.
The high elves are the dreams of kings, bishops and heroes; larger than life and possessed of immense charisma. Their gifts reflect this with abilities like flight or immense physical prowess or manifestations of divine power.
The common elves are the dreams of commoners; roughly human-sized and possessed of simple gifts that make certain professions easier (ex. what smith wouldn't dream of a forge that never needs stoking?).
The low elves are the dreams of the serfs and slaves. They are smaller than men and their gifts are small dreams like having enough food to eat or being able to slip from sight or go unnoticed.
Because of these particular proficiencies and traits and the mortal world being nowhere near as malleable as the dream realms, elves tend to fall into caste-based hierarchies with the lesser elves laboring to provide a life for the high elves as close to the ones they enjoyed in the dream realms and utterly lacking in hope of becoming more than they are. Those that do have such dreams tend to abandon elven societies entirely and get labeled as "dark elves"; the criminal/untouchable class to be killed on sight in order to recycle them back into the proper place within elven society.
The dwarves are men who were transmuted by the demons to be better laborers for their hellish mines, but did so shoddily such that their limbs and organs wear out at different rates (which isn't a problem when you were intended to be worked to death by the age of 25). But the dwarves invented arcane magic to fight the demons and, in the aftermath of the victory turned their knowledge towards replacing their limbs and organs with arcane artifice as they failed; not just replacing but improving on what was lost. The risk of reproductive organ failure means that dwarves tend to have families early in life (marriage at 15-16 is common; most are grandparents by their mid-30's) and then pursue other interests later in life once their family line is secure.
Depending on what has failed, the dwarf might have darkvision, a cast iron stomach, iron lungs, a mechanical arm with a hand that can turn into any smithing tool, etc. The eldest dwarves become nearly entirely composed of artifice; basically arcane cyborgs with their brains inside a superhuman metal body where they can provide guidance to their families for centuries.
Yeah, both can be wizards and thieves, but tell me, how are those sorts of differences I laid out "rubber costume" territory?
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 02, 2021, 02:05:06 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 02, 2021, 12:34:41 PM
Sorry, my bad I forgot the tendency to make all races equal and nothing more than humans in a ruber costume.
I would revert to having more differentiated races.
Sorry, my bad. I forgot some people are only upset at the SJWs because they took the gatekeeper for the hobby spot they wanted for themselves.
See how that passive aggressive bullshit solves absolutely nothing?
Just because two races/species/kinds can both work magic, pray to deities, fight or skulk about doesn't makes them "equal." It just means they can do very basic things common to most species in a fantasy setting... their racial traits influence how those things are expressed though if your system actually has any meat to it.
My elves, for example, are the astral servitors of the goddess of dreams/illusions who were trapped in the world by the Cataclysm. They have the spark of divinity inside them that makes them truly immortal (even if killed, they will reincarnate in the womb of an elven mother) and grants each of them a divine gift associated with those people often have in dreams.
The high elves are the dreams of kings, bishops and heroes; larger than life and possessed of immense charisma. Their gifts reflect this with abilities like flight or immense physical prowess or manifestations of divine power.
The common elves are the dreams of commoners; roughly human-sized and possessed of simple gifts that make certain professions easier (ex. what smith wouldn't dream of a forge that never needs stoking?).
The low elves are the dreams of the serfs and slaves. They are smaller than men and their gifts are small dreams like having enough food to eat or being able to slip from sight or go unnoticed.
Because of these particular proficiencies and traits and the mortal world being nowhere near as malleable as the dream realms, elves tend to fall into caste-based hierarchies with the lesser elves laboring to provide a life for the high elves as close to the ones they enjoyed in the dream realms and utterly lacking in hope of becoming more than they are. Those that do have such dreams tend to abandon elven societies entirely and get labeled as "dark elves"; the criminal/untouchable class to be killed on sight in order to recycle them back into the proper place within elven society.
The dwarves are men who were transmuted by the demons to be better laborers for their hellish mines, but did so shoddily such that their limbs and organs wear out at different rates (which isn't a problem when you were intended to be worked to death by the age of 25). But the dwarves invented arcane magic to fight the demons and, in the aftermath of the victory turned their knowledge towards replacing their limbs and organs with arcane artifice as they failed; not just replacing but improving on what was lost. The risk of reproductive organ failure means that dwarves tend to have families early in life (marriage at 15-16 is common; most are grandparents by their mid-30's) and then pursue other interests later in life once their family line is secure.
Depending on what has failed, the dwarf might have darkvision, a cast iron stomach, iron lungs, a mechanical arm with a hand that can turn into any smithing tool, etc. The eldest dwarves become nearly entirely composed of artifice; basically arcane cyborgs with their brains inside a superhuman metal body where they can provide guidance to their families for centuries.
Yeah, both can be wizards and thieves, but tell me, how are those sorts of differences I laid out "rubber costume" territory?
Sorry, my bad forgot some people like to project their characteristics onto others.
NOW I'm being passive aggressive.
I was strictly talking about 5e and D&D in general, YOU took it as a personal attack.
Not reading the rest, thank you.
QuoteThis is my longstanding rule that there's not half-anything peeking out: No one can interbreed with other races.
In my games Elves, Dwarves, Halflings aren't demi-humans but humanoid. And I tend to forget that vanilla D&D isn't like that much less the "you can play a zany tiefling" 5e
That's not even the point whether there is half-something. It's more pardon me Marxist "social being define concioussness". Dwarves, halflings, elves in basic vanilla D&D, whether able to mix with humans and themselves, whether you call them humanoids or demihumans, are objectively human-like. While size varies - they are build like humans, talk like humans, have human like features, eat more or less like humans, and so on, and so on. They are on functional level as human as you can be when being not Homo sapiens.
Unlike you rewrite them as something very different - like let's say Gloranta with plant elves, and stone dwarves, and duck halflings, or some setting where all demihumans are inherently fey beings like in old Anderson novels, they are very much humans with minor changes. Damn in Tolkien world paragon of elfo-dwarven fantasy by word of Tolkien - Elves are the same species as Men (because they are meant to be more or less Pre-Fall Edenian Men.) Hobbits are literally pygmy ofshot of humanity, and so on, and so on.
So yes I expect that while physiology and some common mental traits will influence such beings, that overall they would be way more simmilar to humans than dragons, reptilians or elementals.
Which also implies for me at least that their cultures will be as much manifestiation of their surroundings, places they live, ways they survive, ergo marxist "social being" as their very human like biology. So jungle societies of various kin can have vastly more in common than their biological cousins from harsh norther mountains, deserts and so on.
And now don't get me wrong - I like making some mental changes in other species, to make it more than rubber skin, but high cultural concepts are not one of them - as they are matter of nurture not of being born - that's why human infants raised by literal wolves turns out to be feral adults, among species like human your social self is built by interaction. As even Bible says that "faith cames from listening", and so on.
Now sure you can make elves zany fey beings born from flowers with innate fey knowledge. But if they are biological beings of flesh and blood of Prime Material, then considering their anatomy - they have to be very human-like.
Quote from: Wrath of God on August 02, 2021, 03:08:49 PM
QuoteThis is my longstanding rule that there's not half-anything peeking out: No one can interbreed with other races.
In my games Elves, Dwarves, Halflings aren't demi-humans but humanoid. And I tend to forget that vanilla D&D isn't like that much less the "you can play a zany tiefling" 5e
That's not even the point whether there is half-something. It's more pardon me Marxist "social being define concioussness". Dwarves, halflings, elves in basic vanilla D&D, whether able to mix with humans and themselves, whether you call them humanoids or demihumans, are objectively human-like. While size varies - they are build like humans, talk like humans, have human like features, eat more or less like humans, and so on, and so on. They are on functional level as human as you can be when being not Homo sapiens.
Unlike you rewrite them as something very different - like let's say Gloranta with plant elves, and stone dwarves, and duck halflings, or some setting where all demihumans are inherently fey beings like in old Anderson novels, they are very much humans with minor changes. Damn in Tolkien world paragon of elfo-dwarven fantasy by word of Tolkien - Elves are the same species as Men (because they are meant to be more or less Pre-Fall Edenian Men.) Hobbits are literally pygmy ofshot of humanity, and so on, and so on.
So yes I expect that while physiology and some common mental traits will influence such beings, that overall they would be way more simmilar to humans than dragons, reptilians or elementals.
Which also implies for me at least that their cultures will be as much manifestiation of their surroundings, places they live, ways they survive, ergo marxist "social being" as their very human like biology. So jungle societies of various kin can have vastly more in common than their biological cousins from harsh norther mountains, deserts and so on.
And now don't get me wrong - I like making some mental changes in other species, to make it more than rubber skin, but high cultural concepts are not one of them - as they are matter of nurture not of being born - that's why human infants raised by literal wolves turns out to be feral adults, among species like human your social self is built by interaction. As even Bible says that "faith cames from listening", and so on.
Now sure you can make elves zany fey beings born from flowers with innate fey knowledge. But if they are biological beings of flesh and blood of Prime Material, then considering their anatomy - they have to be very human-like.
It's been theorized that, given the little genetic difference in our make up, we could probably interbreed with chimps and/or bonobos. Probably the offspring would turn out to be sterile. Long standing barrier between two closely related species is being able to procreate fertile offspring.
Now, being humanlike (humanoid) and being human isn't the same thing by a country mile.
A robotic sex doll is humanlike (humanoid) no one would argue it's human.
I know how D&D treats Elves and the rest, which is why I specify this is MY rule on MY games. I tend to make all different species, unable to interbreed, because?
I have never been asked to elaborate but if I had to I would say they look like humans because of:
Convergent evolution.
A very distant common ancestor but so far back they can't interbreed anymore.
Thier deity created them ex nihilo like that, and all their characteristics are hard coded by said creator.
They don't but their inherent glamour is used to seem like humans.
The last one I'm using on a human centric game where all other species are nothing but types of Fey and evil, just like in the original folklore. But this game is in it's very early stage of development and only 4 people so far have played in a world that had this type of creatures and that was just a setting for D&D.
I could probably think of more reasons that make it semi plausible their existence with their looks.
QuoteIt's been theorized that, given the little genetic difference in our make up, we could probably interbreed with chimps and/or bonobos. Probably the offspring would turn out to be sterile. Long standing barrier between two closely related species is being able to procreate fertile offspring.
Well sure but what bonobos have to do with our discussion.
QuoteNow, being humanlike (humanoid) and being human isn't the same thing by a country mile.
Well that depends. If we have species, biological being which is very human like (we can safely say most humanoids are way closer to human than theoretical chimps) then it's quite close there. Because biological species are ruled by certain rules. And humanoid species are ruled by what such form can realistically aquire. (That's why realistic dwarves should use spears not axes in melee ;) )
QuoteI know how D&D treats Elves and the rest, which is why I specify this is MY rule on MY games. I tend to make all different species, unable to interbreed, because?
But I do not seek explanation of why they are sterile - that's your fiat I guess, there are many easy explanation - you've given them.
I speak more about matter of how cultures evolve depending of conditions of life - and it's on purely biological perspective inevitable.
So let's see:
QuoteConvergent evolution
Well and convergent evolution causes non-closely-related species to operate with simmilar modus operandi. Great sea lizards and great predatory whales. Real dogs and dog like hyana species.
Giant sea sloths and sirens. Falcons and hawks. Herons and storks. So still if elves are convergently evolved gazellas, and dwarves are convergently evolved crocodiles - if they evolved to human like shape, and human like intellect I expect them to be very human-like in modus operandi. So their desert, seafaring, forest, highlander, steppe cultures would share much between species based on living conditions and necessities it bring with.
QuoteA very distant common ancestor but so far back they can't interbreed anymore.
As said above.
QuoteThier deity created them ex nihilo like that, and all their characteristics are hard coded by said creator.
As I said Glorantha like setting where elves and dwarves are very specific divine creations fits that, and sure then you can hard boil very rigid psychology that would be hindering for natural intelligent species with aspirations of spreading and advancement.
QuoteThey don't but their inherent glamour is used to seem like humans.
Fine by me. Then they are something inhuman and they should have inhuman ways of life.
QuoteThe last one I'm using on a human centric game where all other species are nothing but types of Fey and evil, just like in the original folklore. But this game is in it's very early stage of development and only 4 people so far have played in a world that had this type of creatures and that was just a setting for D&D.
That's fine. As I said - if elves are fey by nature I have no qualms about their mentality being unrealisticly rigid for natural intelligent species. That's totes fine.
The woke view of race is absolutely a rubber costume. Its mascot is Trudeau in black face. They don't want to roleplay as an elf, they want to cosplay as an elf. The Kryptonite to this horror show ideology is genetic differences hardwired into the system. We have passed the point in 5e (with the latest updates) where there is more diversity in terms of genetic differences in real world human populations than there is between the fantasy RPG world "races".
Quote from: mightybrain on August 02, 2021, 06:55:34 PM
The woke view of race is absolutely a rubber costume. Its mascot is Trudeau in black face. They don't want to roleplay as an elf, they want to cosplay as an elf. The Kryptonite to this horror show ideology is genetic differences hardwired into the system. We have passed the point in 5e (with the latest updates) where there is more diversity in terms of genetic differences in real world human populations than there is between the fantasy RPG world "races".
All well and good, but I'm still waiting for an explanation of why genetic differences mean all elves (even baby elves apparently*) know how to fire longbows effectively even if they've never seen one before because they were raised by wolves and why all dwarves can wield axes (but only axes, not maces or hammers that have similar basic use principles) as well as a trained human warrior even if they've never handled one before in their lives.
That's what actually started this divergence from the topic of creating a 5e clone.
* yes, I'm exaggerating for effect, but the notion of universal weapon skills regardless their upbringing just rubs me the wrong way.
QuoteThe woke view of race is absolutely a rubber costume. Its mascot is Trudeau in black face. They don't want to roleplay as an elf, they want to cosplay as an elf. The Kryptonite to this horror show ideology is genetic differences hardwired into the system. We have passed the point in 5e (with the latest updates) where there is more diversity in terms of genetic differences in real world human populations than there is between the fantasy RPG world "races".
The problem is those differences were never baked into D&D more than human in rubber costume that may hinder Dex a bit or improve it a bit due to supper googles but ultimately it's costume.
And since D&D never really supported playing really alien species, most of people played them as basically humans with few extra notes. :P Wanna really make those species non-human - you need some psychology/culture mechanics that will actively enforce certain choices on player. And Players hates losing control over choices... so... good luck
Greetings!
In my campaign, I have numerous races, and trainloads of mutants and crossbreeds. Many races have very distinct attributes, though many of the lesser half-breeds and partial mutants tend to have a more simplified attribute profile. Making every kind of race and crazy half-breed mutant super-distinct can get to be a problem, after awhile, mechanically-speaking. Over all though, the benefits outweigh the relatively minor negatives. The players of course enjoy letting their choices run wild, and, as the DM, having a basic framework allows the inclusion of whatever kind of mutant race that the campaign might need, or desire, for whatever reason.
In general, I usually prefer a strongly human-centric party and a society, with traditional races contributing. I'm not a huge fan of crazy zoos, but I also admit to having a somewhat contradictory appreciation for the strange, mythical, and wondrous possibilities of including whatever kind of fucked up mutant race. Some of them, of course, can add a great deal of nuance, wonder, and drama to the group and the campaign, and help to add layers of distinction that can make any given campaign into having a very different feel from the traditional vanilla fantasy.
I designed my game world so that I have some regions that are more traditional vanilla fantasy, while some other areas are more "Gonzo". Then again, the way I have designed everything, any place can be more or less traditional or "Gonzo", just by choosing how much *presence* the zoo races have in the immediate area. More so, then they can be present more, and more active. Less so, they can be more distant and on the margins.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 02, 2021, 07:10:29 PM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 02, 2021, 06:55:34 PM
The woke view of race is absolutely a rubber costume. Its mascot is Trudeau in black face. They don't want to roleplay as an elf, they want to cosplay as an elf. The Kryptonite to this horror show ideology is genetic differences hardwired into the system. We have passed the point in 5e (with the latest updates) where there is more diversity in terms of genetic differences in real world human populations than there is between the fantasy RPG world "races".
All well and good, but I'm still waiting for an explanation of why genetic differences mean all elves (even baby elves apparently*) know how to fire longbows effectively even if they've never seen one before because they were raised by wolves and why all dwarves can wield axes (but only axes, not maces or hammers that have similar basic use principles) as well as a trained human warrior even if they've never handled one before in their lives.
That's what actually started this divergence from the topic of creating a 5e clone.
* yes, I'm exaggerating for effect, but the notion of universal weapon skills regardless their upbringing just rubs me the wrong way.
Assuming Elves, Dwarves & Halflings are endemic to the world and can be found in different environments. In adition to assuming ALL we know (about jack shit) about the only inteligent species we know (Humans) can be applied to them.
Then sure, they should be as varied as humans are depending of the environment, but why stop at culture?
We know humans evolved to adapt to different environments, white skin and narrow nose aren't as usefull in the African Jungle as in Europe, and viceversa, dark skin and broad nose aren't as useful in Europe as in the African Jungle.
The Inuit have very narrow eyes for a reason.
So you'd have as much of a diverse skin tone and facial features among them as among humans.
On the other hand if we don't assume Dwarves, Elves and Halflings are endemic to the world but to a region of it...
Then the logical conclusion would be the opposite.
And this opens up the possibility of getting a PC from a different species endemic of a different region of said world.
As for communications...
It's a world where magic is real and the gods do intervene, so right there you have a workable option to telephone, telegraph and even videophone. Not to mention to automobiles, trains, ships and planes since teleṕortation is a thing too.
Given these facts of the game world...
Why would Dwarven culture differ too much depending where in the world they are?
Quote from: Wrath of God on August 02, 2021, 07:23:32 PM
QuoteThe woke view of race is absolutely a rubber costume. Its mascot is Trudeau in black face. They don't want to roleplay as an elf, they want to cosplay as an elf. The Kryptonite to this horror show ideology is genetic differences hardwired into the system. We have passed the point in 5e (with the latest updates) where there is more diversity in terms of genetic differences in real world human populations than there is between the fantasy RPG world "races".
The problem is those differences were never baked into D&D more than human in rubber costume that may hinder Dex a bit or improve it a bit due to supper googles but ultimately it's costume.
And since D&D never really supported playing really alien species, most of people played them as basically humans with few extra notes. :P Wanna really make those species non-human - you need some psychology/culture mechanics that will actively enforce certain choices on player. And Players hates losing control over choices... so... good luck
You mean things like alignment?
You're a Vulcan, Vulcans eschew emotion and put rationality above al else.
You're a Ferengi...
You're a Klingon...
I seem to remember a few games where those races do exist, haven't ever bought or played one but I would expect something like that to be there.
I'd use the new Stargate SG-1 rpg as the basis of my own fantasy 5e clone.
The new SG rpg has classes only up to level 5. After that the game goes classless. Instead of getting a full 20 levels of predetermined abilities, when you get a new level after level 5 you get 10 build points and you just buy the character abilities you want.
This is what I'd do with a 5e fantasy clone.
The classes would be more broad... Warrior, Rogue, Devoted (someone devoted to a deity or cause), Magic User, Nomad/Ranger (someone who is focused on travelling, the environment, tracking, hunting, and knowledge of various different locations), Forger (someone focused on smithing, creating things, architecture, and engineering things), and Warlord (by far the best thing about 4e and deserves more love).
I'd change other things and have to come up with a lot of new feat-/class-like abilities players could choose from starting at level 6.
And the XP chart would have to be changed. No more of that 300 XP to level 2 stuff.
I don't mind the gender paragraphs in the book as they are. If humans actually took the words used literally they basically come down to "Respect each other and don't be a fucking jerk at the table" but because the woke left uses double speak and dialectical thinking then everything they do has hidden meanings that work to undo what is proper grammatical language and change the meanings of words. So what is an alright message of being respectful gets twisted into a message of hate and division.
But my 5e fantasy game wouldn't have those paragraphs. It would just have a disclaimer like ... "This game book is written with the assumption that you, the reader, is a mature and intelligent human being (or possibly an intelligence from a different dimension) that is capable of role-playing and being respectful of others sharing the game space with you. If you cannot separate fictional reality from real reality, like if you are a person who cannot tell the difference between a fictional race like orcs and real life humans then you should put this book down and go see a therapist. It's clear you need help.
To everyone else, have fun and don't be a jerk."
Quote from: RebelSky on August 02, 2021, 09:14:50 PM
I'd use the new Stargate SG-1 rpg as the basis of my own fantasy 5e clone.
The new SG rpg has classes only up to level 5. After that the game goes classless. Instead of getting a full 20 levels of predetermined abilities, when you get a new level after level 5 you get 10 build points and you just buy the character abilities you want.
This is what I'd do with a 5e fantasy clone.
The classes would be more broad... Warrior, Rogue, Devoted (someone devoted to a deity or cause), Magic User, Nomad/Ranger (someone who is focused on travelling, the environment, tracking, hunting, and knowledge of various different locations), Forger (someone focused on smithing, creating things, architecture, and engineering things), and Warlord (by far the best thing about 4e and deserves more love).
I'd change other things and have to come up with a lot of new feat-/class-like abilities players could choose from starting at level 6.
And the XP chart would have to be changed. No more of that 300 XP to level 2 stuff.
I don't mind the gender paragraphs in the book as they are. If humans actually took the words used literally they basically come down to "Respect each other and don't be a fucking jerk at the table" but because the woke left uses double speak and dialectical thinking then everything they do has hidden meanings that work to undo what is proper grammatical language and change the meanings of words. So what is an alright message of being respectful gets twisted into a message of hate and division.
But my 5e fantasy game wouldn't have those paragraphs. It would just have a disclaimer like ... "This game book is written with the assumption that you, the reader, is a mature and intelligent human being (or possibly an intelligence from a different dimension) that is capable of role-playing and being respectful of others sharing the game space with you. If you cannot separate fictional reality from real reality, like if you are a person who cannot tell the difference between a fictional race like orcs and real life humans then you should put this book down and go see a therapist. It's clear you need help.
To everyone else, have fun and don't be a jerk."
I'm totally stealing that disclaimer.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 02, 2021, 02:05:06 PM
My elves...
My dwarves...
Thats some Good Stuff, Chris.
Why is this confusing?
Races produce organisms with <X> beneficial/non-beneficial traits for *reasons*.
Cultures are produced by racial species with the aforementioned traits - predictably the *reasons* may influence the emphasis of certain behaviors.
Over time, specialization of certain behaviors will either allow that culture to proliferate or decline as competition/environment changes where adaptability will further refine the species and their cultures. If they go extinct - who cares? It means they're not playable.
So yes you can have your Elf, and they can be smart, agile. But you can make cultural differences matter at the culture level, rather than the species level. Good design should baseline the physical/mental characteristics of your species. Cultural matters should be given a baseline and PC's that want to be from that specific (sub)culture should purchase them out of their own pool of resources. And if they don't - they should suffer the repercussions of it socially.
So the Grey Elves of Elennia do a lot of hunting from the backs of their giant horse-sized stag-hounds. In the write up for that sub-culture they get +1 to hit with Spears. If in the char-gent process the Grey Elf chooses to buy proficiency in the Spear, they get that bonus. If they choose something else, then he's a snowflake among them and they will treat him accordingly.
This is just an example. The point being is that as a GM or world-builder, you should make anything above the "norm" or out of the assumed baseline *MEAN* something. It doesn't have to be good/bad - or maybe it does. You need to contextualize it.
This is why SJW's can't do good games. Being Woke is about demanding an orthodoxy that is free of the context of GAMING ITSELF. It's imposing values and rules on a secondary world, much like reality, that doesn't give TWO fucks about their Woke view of the world.
I look forward to the day some new player in my group pretends all Drow aren't Evil and tries to act accordingly. Oh sure there's good Drow out there. But they may be willing to shift Alignment and kill that PC if only to save their own asses. Just because you're "Good" doesn't make you heroic. Just because you're "Evil" doesn't mean you go around murdering people. Context and circumstance are KING.
Quote from: Aglondir on August 02, 2021, 09:52:05 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 02, 2021, 02:05:06 PM
My elves...
My dwarves...
Thats some Good Stuff, Chris.
Thanks. Mostly it was a case of "How the heck do I include the standard fantasy races people expect without being absolutely derivative."
I'll admit, at one point I was so uninspired by bog standard elves and dwarves at different points that I was about to merge them into other species (dwarves would have been just a type of mutant, elves would have a colloquialism for several humanoid subtypes of Eldritch).
I mean, I STILL haven't found an interesting spin on Halflings, my informal conversion from D&D is basically "play a human; choose Reflexes for an attribute bonus and don't pick Strength as an attribute bonus; say you're a pygmy and make sure you pick sling as one of your skilled weapons."
The big part though is that I decided to dump the OGL, which required me to go back to original myths and legends or invent all new spins rather than just using what D&D had mostly borrowed from Tolkien... and Halflings just aren't a thing outside of D&D.
But there was enough there to build something original for elves and dwarves by doing a big of mix and match and some of my own ideas tossed in.
The Elves are very much inspired by the Sidhe with the notion of Seelie/Unseelie tied to the cycles of a moon goddess whose purview was also goddess of dreams/nightmares. The desire to include half-elves led me to the idea that they were specifically the embodied dreams of humans who could interbreed with humans because they were spiritually related and that dreams about having children make that a supernatural gift of certain elves in the same way some can fly or shift shape (though half-elves pretty quickly became just an option for "elven ancestry" under the human entry allowing quarter or even further back connections where a recessive trait popped up).
My seed of inspiration for the version of the dwarves that I ended up going with was Nuada Silverhand; legendary first king of the Tuatha del Danaan who lost his arm in battle and had it replaced with a magical one made of silver. That quickly expanded into their mastering essentially arcane cybernetics and then a reason for why they'd find it a species necessity (and demons being shoddy with their work and unable to truly create just fit with my paradigm for demons).
There's all sorts of things you can do if you have limits to start; I can't directly reference the D&D SRDs and I had a personal worldbuilding rule that Humans were to be the ONLY natural and native sapient species in the world; every other PC kind/race had to either come from elsewhere or be created from or by humans because there's an underlying current of science fantasy akin to He-Man (the real one) and Thundarr the Barbarian where actual evolution played at least some role and, while there are a plethora of species NOW, the setting is a specific point in time where the Cataclysm created/sucked in a bunch of other species and if you jumped ahead a few thousand years the competition between species see most of the non-human sapients extinct and the rest either endangered or hybridized with humans to the point all that's left of them are certain ethnic features in the human population.
The setting is basically presented as a specific time and place where many species are present and interesting events are occurring. There will be a time in the future when there are no more dragons or elves, but that is not this day and probably not even for thousands of years and a hundred generations yet (PC have the immediate history of the last decade or so to deal with).
It's not my favorite way to handle it, but I have run a setting where all the humanoid races were all derivatives of early, proto-human species--in a world with a lot of magical radiation where folk take on the characteristics of where they live. Think of it as standard evolution accelerated radically and often run amuck and you have the basic idea.
What that logically gives you is that every race pretty much is a human in a rubber suit in one sense. They've all got some dim connection to the same thing. On the other hand, the cultures are even more different and strange than real human cultures. "Elves" and "Humans" in this particular area dominated by a great wood may have conflicts, but they at least understand each other to some extent and likely have a grudging respect for capabilities. Those idiots over there in the mountains? Could be utter disdain, kill on sight, vast pity, etc.
One of the reasons it's not my favorite is that it makes travel and trade almost impossible, though for a change of pace it was interesting.
@Steven Mitchell But those are perfectly fine as long as in-setting you commit to it and whatever permutations are required to meet your satisfaction. I dabble a LOT with those ideas myself.
The part that I'm mystified about is this: do people really think the issue of D&D 5e is in-game races/species??? Removing "woke" stuff is trivial. I took the idea of a 5e Clone to "make it better" to mean to PLAY better.
the Woke shit is easy to leave out.
I'm truly amazed at the amount of discussion going on about Species, sub-races, cultures etc. which definitely should be addressed in the creation of an alternative 5e Clone... but I didn't realize it was such an apparent issue for for so many people. Or am I reading this thread incorrectly?
I think 5e has a lot of other mechanical issues that if I were to Clone it, I'd be more concerned with? Wondering whether or not Alignment matters for Drow or Orcs, or whether or not sub-races should have cultural benefits intrinsically or as part of some other sub-system (which is a legit discussion, I think it's easy to separate from being a major concern). I feel like we're all pretty self-aware enough that handwringing over this (if that's what it is - or whether new folks here are merely getting their first shot at discussing this stuff they've felt but never had a forum in which to do it, heh) is like self-gaslighting party.
Generally speaking I say if biological/sociological reality is something that matters to you - then build your world accordingly. If it doesn't, be prepared to be called out on the dancefloor, and if you're honest, you better have some thick soles and be ready to boogie.
The Human In the Rubber Suit Issue
Here's my Hot Sports Opinion. I'm going to call Cosmic BULLLLLLLLSHIT on this whole phenomenon. For all the people that dismiss alternative races as "Humans in a Rubber Suit" I'll point out that games that those people
1) Do not play games that earnestly try to avoid this issue - like Jorune
2) May play those games but they comprise such a tiny part of the game-purchasing/playing public they may as well not exist as consumer.
My experience is that people generally need the Rubber Suit just to get their heads in the game. You may be of rarified taste, wanting some exotic experience to play as a multi-tentacled semi-aquatic race that communicates in luminous light-bubbles that pop musical tones that infer "ideas" as abstract mental textures as their primary mode of information-exchange - but most people are going to avoid that shit like the plague.
Players want to play things adjacent to their experience AT MOST. And even then most of them don't want to really do that either. Tolkien as the primary ingredient of D&D is what conditioned most people to this. Try explaining what an Elf is to a normie that has never seen Lord of the Rings. They'll look at you like you're "One of those people".
And my final card to play in calling bullshit on people that shit on Humans in Rubber Suits is - Talislanta. That's right, you bastards. TALISLANTA.
I've heard it for years and years - how if I point out NO ELVES. Motherfuckers will come out of the woodwork and say... "But Elves... look pointy ears." with ZERO attempts to even back that claim up in-setting. Yes there is one race that happens to check off more than a few superficial boxes but even then by D&D standards they're not even *remotely* traditional to D&D concepts of Elves (lookin at you Ariane!). But meanwhile as much as anyone wants to debate it (I'm down for that!) the reality is Talislanta, which has DOZENS and DOZENS of races with unique cultures, many of which can and do plug right into any S&S conceptions of fantasy, is largely ignored by the gaming populace.
I rest my case, in my smug conviction. Talislanta, baby. Talislanta.
Just to spite the cucks, I'd fortify the concept of race.
Humans get races, too, with positive and negative modifiers, just like in reality.
I don't get why roleplayers have trouble with races. They should understand it better than Joe Sixpack.
Isn't diversity the greatest thing? Then why can't we cherish it in games?
Quote from: tenbones on August 03, 2021, 09:48:51 AM
@Steven Mitchell But those are perfectly fine as long as in-setting you commit to it and whatever permutations are required to meet your satisfaction. I dabble a LOT with those ideas myself.
The part that I'm mystified about is this: do people really think the issue of D&D 5e is in-game races/species??? Removing "woke" stuff is trivial. I took the idea of a 5e Clone to "make it better" to mean to PLAY better.
the Woke shit is easy to leave out.
I'm truly amazed at the amount of discussion going on about Species, sub-races, cultures etc. which definitely should be addressed in the creation of an alternative 5e Clone... but I didn't realize it was such an apparent issue for for so many people. Or am I reading this thread incorrectly?
I think 5e has a lot of other mechanical issues that if I were to Clone it, I'd be more concerned with? Wondering whether or not Alignment matters for Drow or Orcs, or whether or not sub-races should have cultural benefits intrinsically or as part of some other sub-system (which is a legit discussion, I think it's easy to separate from being a major concern). I feel like we're all pretty self-aware enough that handwringing over this (if that's what it is - or whether new folks here are merely getting their first shot at discussing this stuff they've felt but never had a forum in which to do it, heh) is like self-gaslighting party.
Generally speaking I say if biological/sociological reality is something that matters to you - then build your world accordingly. If it doesn't, be prepared to be called out on the dancefloor, and if you're honest, you better have some thick soles and be ready to boogie.
I don't even remember why the tread went that way. :P
Yeah, the intent is to discuss the mechanics, the whys and hows to making a "better" (because better is subjective) 5e, that plays smoothly, that lacks the "bad design" parts (or has fixed them) and includes the "good design" parts, even if those are borrowed from elsewhere.
BUT with the underlaying chassis of 5e, something current 5e players could gork easily and switch to without a hickup.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 10:48:38 AM
Just to spite the cucks, I'd fortify the concept of race.
Humans get races, too, with positive and negative modifiers, just like in reality.
I don't get why roleplayers have trouble with races. They should understand it better than Joe Sixpack.
Isn't diversity the greatest thing? Then why can't we cherish it in games?
Go play Myfarog oh migthy uncucked one.
It's not a good game so I won't.
Do you think the woke idea that no race can have penalties is good for the game? Do you think all orc lives matter?
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 11:37:02 AM
It's not a good game so I won't.
Do you think the woke idea that no race can have penalties is good for the game? Do you think all orc lives matter?
What races? Elves, Dwarves, Humans & Halflings? By all means bonus & penalties is how we make them different.
Different human "races"? Nope, which is why you should go play Myfarog, the racist developer made it so.
You want to make different types of human? Make cultures, so the mountain barbarian is different from the civilized imperial. But this doesn't imply skin tone so it might not be your cup of tea.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 10:51:32 AM
Yeah, the intent is to discuss the mechanics, the whys and hows to making a "better" (because better is subjective) 5e, that plays smoothly, that lacks the "bad design" parts (or has fixed them) and includes the "good design" parts, even if those are borrowed from elsewhere.
BUT with the underlaying chassis of 5e, something current 5e players could gork easily and switch to without a hickup.
Cool! I'm in!
I confess, the list I tossed up of mechanical changes is very aggressive. I haven't put it to the test, but I plan someday on trying to make it work.
One of the big issues I think plauges D&D is the assumption that high-level play is somehow a thing, when in reality the d20 20-level spread has never been friendly for play at 13+ level. And I'm saying that from personal experience of having had multi-year campaigns that were above 13th level in 1e, 2e, and 3.x/PF well into the 20th level+ play. It's *miserable* to GM in the aggregate.
It's the *system* itself. I think it can be re-tooled to be more scale-friendly, so you could actually have the "high-level" experience without sacrificing the low-level gritty game, AND make the system leaner and lighter all at the same time.
But Sacred Cows must be on the table for sacrifice.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 11:58:40 AM
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 11:37:02 AM
It's not a good game so I won't.
Do you think the woke idea that no race can have penalties is good for the game? Do you think all orc lives matter?
What races? Elves, Dwarves, Humans & Halflings? By all means bonus & penalties is how we make them different.
Different human "races"? Nope, which is why you should go play Myfarog, the racist developer made it so.
You want to make different types of human? Make cultures, so the mountain barbarian is different from the civilized imperial. But this doesn't imply skin tone so it might not be your cup of tea.
What's your obsession with skin tone anyhow? You fundamentally don't get race. It's not about skin, that's just a tiny subset which is not very significant on top of being reductionist. Talking fantasy, that's like saying a pinkish orc would necessarily be exactly like a human. Or a short elf would be indistiguishable from an elf.
It's crazy what Marxism has done to moderately well educated brains.
Quote from: tenbones on August 03, 2021, 12:00:17 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 10:51:32 AM
Yeah, the intent is to discuss the mechanics, the whys and hows to making a "better" (because better is subjective) 5e, that plays smoothly, that lacks the "bad design" parts (or has fixed them) and includes the "good design" parts, even if those are borrowed from elsewhere.
BUT with the underlaying chassis of 5e, something current 5e players could gork easily and switch to without a hickup.
Cool! I'm in!
I confess, the list I tossed up of mechanical changes is very aggressive. I haven't put it to the test, but I plan someday on trying to make it work.
One of the big issues I think plauges D&D is the assumption that high-level play is somehow a thing, when in reality the d20 20-level spread has never been friendly for play at 13+ level. And I'm saying that from personal experience of having had multi-year campaigns that were above 13th level in 1e, 2e, and 3.x/PF well into the 20th level+ play. It's *miserable* to GM in the aggregate.
It's the *system* itself. I think it can be re-tooled to be more scale-friendly, so you could actually have the "high-level" experience without sacrificing the low-level gritty game, AND make the system leaner and lighter all at the same time.
But Sacred Cows must be on the table for sacrifice.
IMHO there shouldn't be any sacred cows.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 11:37:02 AM
It's not a good game so I won't.
Do you think the woke idea that no race can have penalties is good for the game? Do you think all orc lives matter?
People here, for the most part, aren't Woke.
This is not really an issue for the vast majority of us. I have no problem with having Gender or Species/Race penalties as long as the setting uses those things for express purposes to define the game in play.
Having them for ulterior purposes is no different than what Woke assholes do, only its in a different direction. I don't see the value purity-testing people by cluttering up your game-design with such tests if the game doesn't itself benefit from having those distinctions outside of ulterior motives. You want Orcs dumb, then reflect the impact of that in-game. You want women to be physically capped for "realism" then reflect that in-game, and be prepared for the inevitable questions of why.
I'm less interested in realism than I am in GOOD shit. Red Sonja is GOOD. Wonder Woman is GOOD. Brienne of Tarth is GOOD. Are they realistic? Not in the slightest. But they're cool fucking characters I'd be happy to have in my specific games of choice, and I'd be happy to have a player play such a character if they wanted (regardless of their own gender) so that means the rules should make space for that if you agree it's cool.
If not, then we're back to ones motives for making a TTRPG - which like SJW's has nothing to do with good gaming.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 12:09:14 PM
IMHO there shouldn't be any sacred cows.
In spirit I agree. But we both have been around long enough to know those fuckers are grazing on our fertile soil as we speak. They must be slain and offered back up to to the Gaming Gods with a new Covenant that we can do better!
All fantasy stories, as far as we know, have been 100% written and read by only humans. Paraphrasing, and can't remember who had that insight, and think it was originally Sci/fi not fantasy, but you get the idea. :D
So generally I want some aspect of races being humans in a rubber suit. It's the same way that "stereotype" is not a bad word when world building. That goes double or triple for an RPG setting, where there are already enough communication barriers for imagining the thing without avoiding some of the tried and true possibilities. Moreover, people have really twisted ideas of what constitutes originality. True originality is vanishingly rare. What you get instead is old ideas with a little twist mixed up in a slightly different suit, rubber or not. What interests me more is the actions the characters do and how that works out. If the characters are being played with some intent, it will be interesting whether the elf is an alien plant creature or a human with pointy ears. If the "different" thing in the setting prompts players to engage in what the game is about, it's all good.
Which is all to say that most of the back and forth on such setting issues is more about personal preferences than quality. Someone who really wants exotic elves or no elves is not going to care that much whether the D&D-standard elf in my game is doing something interesting or boring, the same way they aren't going to care if the Percy Faith orchestra has a good arrangement of that 50's pop tune when what they prefer is heavy metal. They may be able to appreciate it on an intellectual level, but it isn't going to be their thing sufficiently for them to pay attention to quality or lack thereof.
As for the larger 5E design (aside from race/culture and woke/not woke stuff), the mix of the parts of it that work with D&D tradition creates a lot of barriers to making it better. That is, the design already makes a lot of compromises to fit in what it wants to do well with something that at least pays homage to various previous editions. To get a much better game, you've got to sacrifice one or the other. Otherwise, it is just tinkering around the edges. That's what a clone must do in order to be a clone.
To give just one example of what I mean, after deciding to start from scratch, I ended up with attributes of Might, Lore, Will, Dexterity, Agility, and Perception. You might notice some distinct missing things. Retrofitting that into 5E is difficult, even if you pretend that Lore is really Int and Will is really Wis (and they aren't, thus the rename, and if you twist them back to Int and Wis should change the names back, and around and around we go). I didn't decide that just to be different. I didn't rename things to be cute. I didn't pick 6 attributes in some kind of false symmetry to the source material. Rather, I built the concepts I wanted, the classes and rules around them, and then named the things what they are. Intelligence and Wisdom are something the player brings. Charisma effects are off in another section of the rules entirely. For my design goals, it's a reasonable sacrifice to say that Str/Con gets rolled up into Might, that Dex gets broken into Dex/Agi, and that perceptive characters pay for that with a lower attribute elsewhere.
Try this hypothesis on for size: 5E is a clone of BEMCI, AD&D, 3E, and 4E. With about the results you would expect for one executed reasonably well mechanically by a group with not very much in the way of setting chops.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 12:04:33 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 11:58:40 AM
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 11:37:02 AM
It's not a good game so I won't.
Do you think the woke idea that no race can have penalties is good for the game? Do you think all orc lives matter?
What races? Elves, Dwarves, Humans & Halflings? By all means bonus & penalties is how we make them different.
Different human "races"? Nope, which is why you should go play Myfarog, the racist developer made it so.
You want to make different types of human? Make cultures, so the mountain barbarian is different from the civilized imperial. But this doesn't imply skin tone so it might not be your cup of tea.
What's your obsession with skin tone anyhow? You fundamentally don't get race. It's not about skin, that's just a tiny subset which is not very significant on top of being reductionist. Talking fantasy, that's like saying a pinkish orc would necessarily be exactly like a human. Or a short elf would be indistiguishable from an elf.
It's crazy what Marxism has done to moderately well educated brains.
It's crazy how you think I would forget how you started your participation on the thread:
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 10:48:38 AM
Just to spite the cucks, I'd fortify the concept of race.
Humans get races, too, with positive and negative modifiers, just like in reality.
I don't get why roleplayers have trouble with races. They should understand it better than Joe Sixpack.
Isn't diversity the greatest thing? Then why can't we cherish it in games?
HUMANS, you were talking about human races, when called out on your bailey you try to retreat to your motte.
Which is why I told you to go play Myfarog since I'm told it does have human races with different attributes, mainly the "darkies" being savage, stupid and such. I think you might find it to your liking.
As for Marxists... LOL yeah, I'm totally a Marxist, this will be news for the real Marxists/Postmodernists in this forum.
Quote from: tenbones on August 03, 2021, 12:09:34 PM
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 11:37:02 AM
It's not a good game so I won't.
Do you think the woke idea that no race can have penalties is good for the game? Do you think all orc lives matter?
People here, for the most part, aren't Woke.
This is not really an issue for the vast majority of us. I have no problem with having Gender or Species/Race penalties as long as the setting uses those things for express purposes to define the game in play.
Having them for ulterior purposes is no different than what Woke assholes do, only its in a different direction. I don't see the value purity-testing people by cluttering up your game-design with such tests if the game doesn't itself benefit from having those distinctions outside of ulterior motives. You want Orcs dumb, then reflect the impact of that in-game. You want women to be physically capped for "realism" then reflect that in-game, and be prepared for the inevitable questions of why.
I'm less interested in realism than I am in GOOD shit. Red Sonja is GOOD. Wonder Woman is GOOD. Brienne of Tarth is GOOD. Are they realistic? Not in the slightest. But they're cool fucking characters I'd be happy to have in my specific games of choice, and I'd be happy to have a player play such a character if they wanted (regardless of their own gender) so that means the rules should make space for that if you agree it's cool.
If not, then we're back to ones motives for making a TTRPG - which like SJW's has nothing to do with good gaming.
Rule of cool & rule of good gameplay uber alles.
Well, my personal answer to improving 5e's mechanics has been that there's not enough unique to 5e that is exceptional enough to be worth trying to make clone vs. a new system that incorporates the few good ideas found therein.
Basically, just continuing on from where I started my system as the idea of being a 4E retro-clone only for it to quickly become more a spiritual successor and then largely it's own system with a few basic design principles in common with 4E (robust math, yes. narrative-based mechanics, no) and some convergent evolution resulting in a few 5e-like elements (ex. my desire to build mass combat rules into my system from the ground up resulted in something akin to 5e's bounded accuracy built into PC advancement and the monster math... different starting point/motivation, but a similar end result of even high level opponent defenses being in the teens and attack modifiers being in the single digits while damage and health scale up linearly).
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 11:37:02 AM
Do you think the woke idea that no race can have penalties is good for the game? Do you think all orc lives matter?
I think setting the floor at a level where the only modifiers are bonuses makes the math easier (ex. Vanilla 5e humans get +1 to all stats so any race that doesn't get a bonus to a given stat is effectively getting a -1 to that stat relative to a human) and that's generally a good thing for system clarity.
As to orc lives? Let me open with a clarification of terms. Orcs are fictional. You can't kill them any more than you can kill Conan or the Joker. There is nothing immoral about writing stories where they are wiped out indiscriminately by the billions.
So for purposes of this discussion I'm going to presume you mean "is the killing of orcs morally justified within the setting?"
My general feeling in that regard is ALL lives matter. In Superhero games I gravitate to Superman-like figures with no kill rules (one my favorite lines in that regard was one Superman told a villain - "I told you, no one else dies today - not even you.").
If orcs have souls and are capable of reason then, yes, their lives matter (to the extent any fictional character's life matters). In terms of justified killing you may have to take their life out of a need for self-defense or defense of others, but casually exterminating them when they are not an immediate threat would be considered an evil act.
But if, in a given setting, the orcs are soulless monsters of some type, then destroying them is no more immoral than killing a wild animal so it can't endanger nearby humans. You still probably shouldn't enjoy it, but the moral standards of necessity are much lower.
* * * *
As to races/kinds and making them distinct; here's a basic list of those in my setting and their relative origins in rough order of appearance in the Mortal World (NPC indicates its not a playable option, but is important enough to understanding how the races/kinds fit together that a description would be helpful);
- Primal Spirits (NPC) - basically angels native to the Primal Realms/Heaven who created the Mortal World, ostensibly at the behest of The Source.
- Humans - the natural native sapient species of the Mortal World
- Demons (NPC) - rebellious primal spirits who, after helping create the Mortal World, desired to possess and rule it as their own. They conquered the world and enslaved humanity for a time, but were defeated by an alliance (called The First Adventurers) of primal spirits, humans, dwarves and some say even a few malfeans and they are now exiled to the Outer Darkness/Hell and can only enter the Mortal World if summoned by a foolish mortal and can only remain by use of a tether (an active spell, an object or a willing mortal host).
- Dwarves - during the age of the Demon Empire the demons warped some of their human slaves to better endure their hellish mines. We already covered the rest so no point repeating it.
- Malfeans - the demons needed overseers for their many human slaves and so "bred" with them to create demonically tainted humans now called malfeans. They have been persecuted ever since the Demon Empire's fall, but became some of the most devout worshippers of The Source and hold to a belief called The Promise (said to have been given the survivors who escaped the Demon Empire by the leader of the Primal Spirits at the behest of The Source) that if they converted their hearts and remained faithful through the trials to come that one day a savior will be born to redeem them.
- Eldritch - in the war between the primal spirits, some were too cowardly to pick a side and so were exiled by the victorious primal spirits to the mortal world in physical bodies until they could redeem themselves (they reincarnate until they earn it); mortals know them as giants, dragons, sprites, brownies, undines, dryads and countless other reclusive nature "spirits."
- Beastmen - the humans who came to rule after the fall of the Demon Empire desired to be waited on as the demons had been by the humans. So they used the now lost arcane practice of biomancy to transform lesser animals into sapient humanoid slaves. Like the humans before them, the Beastmen (with the help of the newly arisen Astral Gods) rebelled and destroyed the human empire, but were too fractious once victory had been achieved to hold an empire of their own and so the world descended into a dark age of warring tribes of humans and beastmen.
- Astral Servitors (NPC) - the war between the demons and primal spirits shattered the spiritual landscape of the Mortal World; where once it perfectly reflected the spiritual light of The Source, it now scattered that light across the dome of The Great Barrier (the shell that keeps the demons locked in the Outer Darkness), each mote reflecting various spiritual aspects (law, truth, battle, dreams, etc.) and visible in the night sky as stars and constellations. From these spiritual motes emerged consciousnesses aligned with the spiritual aspects. The mightiest of these became the Astral Gods while lesser ones became their servitors. Some were in the Mortal World when the Cataclysm stuck and now trapped there, but because they lack the free will to deviate from their created purpose, aren't generally suitable to be PC's.
- Golems - eventually another great empire arose and, still in need of servants, decided to not repeat the mistake with the beastmen and instead create servants of metal called golems; whose personalities could be regularly wiped and reset to keep them from gaining sapience. Then the Cataclysm hit and wiped out 99.9% of humanity and all the capability to reset the surviving golems... so by process of accretion they began to develop independent personalities.
- Elves - Astral Servitors of the goddess of dreams trapped in the mortal world when the Cataclysm ripped apart the barriers between the mortal world and the spiritual realms (the setting includes no ability to planar travel and even reincarnate back into the Mortal World so they are well and truly stuck). Elves (and gnomes) get around the usual Astral Servitor restrictions because dreams are so mutable that their purpose (to fulfill their dreams) is loose enough to essentially "fake" free will.
- Gnomes - cousins of elves, but nowhere near as rigid because they are the dreams of children, they live carefree lives akin to Peter Pan and the Lost Boys (and will never grow up). They don't even have the concept of sex, gnomes are born stepping fully clothed and grown (if you consider 6-8 years old grown) from the mists of deep forests and, if killed, reset and re-emerge from the same mists. While child-like, the knowledge that they cannot truly die while others can often leads them to take great risks to protect those who have only one life to live.
- Fetches - servants of the goddess of death (no one is certain if they are astral servitors or souls undergoing some sort of purgatory - regardless they have free will and so are suitable to be PCs) and transition who normally patrolled the Shadow World (the spiritual shadow of the Mortal World where The Source's light never falls and souls who fear returning to The Source hide (becoming undead) in order to destroy undead before they could affect the mortal world and guide souls to the Light of the Source. Like the elves, a large number were trapped in the Mortal World by the Cataclysm (which also means undead now manifest more freely in the Mortal World since not enough remain in the Shadow World to stop them). Most continue their tasks in the Mortal World, offering comfort to the sick and dying and hunting the undead wherever they are found.
- Mutants - humans warped by the chaotic energies of the Cataclysm into twisted forms (orcs, ogres, troglodytes, trolls, ettins, etc.). Some were so twisted in mind as well as body they became monsters while those who retain reason can be PC's.
The only things unplayable are entities that lack physical bodies (ex. Primal Spirits, Demons, most Astral Servitors) or lack human sapience (natural or biomancy created beasts of various sorts) or free will (ex. undead are so twisted by the Shadow World they exist only to destroy Creation).
I do have rules in the GM material for demons, undead and astral servitors to be created like PC's, mostly so GMs can use them as full NPCs instead of just opponents, but also so if the GM wants to use my system for a setting with a different cosmology (ex. one where necromancy isn't objectively evil).
Anyway... there's my spread of races/kinds.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 12:15:22 PM
HUMANS, you were talking about human races, when called out on your bailey you try to retreat to your motte.
Which is why I told you to go play Myfarog since I'm told it does have human races with different attributes, mainly the "darkies" being savage, stupid and such. I think you might find it to your liking.
As for Marxists... LOL yeah, I'm totally a Marxist, this will be news for the real Marxists/Postmodernists in this forum.
I think the question of race and what marxism is goes way over your head.
As a White guy I wouldn't care who gets to be "savage, stupid and such". The point would be to educate cucks conceptually.
I would rather play a game where White are savages and get -2 Int and nothing else instead of another empty propaganda product with false egalitarianism seeping even into mythological layers of play.
Marxists deconstruct race for a variety of reasons. They managed to implant the meme of "white supremacy" (you automatically assumed I want to abuse other races!) into you head which you vehemently defend with semantic voodoo.
I like this forum because it still offers a modicum of free speech. But most reputed free thinkers here don't even understand their own shepherded role within the confines of evil globohomo. It's just a bit more convoluted and intellectualised than straight SJW thinking.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 12:35:14 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 12:15:22 PM
HUMANS, you were talking about human races, when called out on your bailey you try to retreat to your motte.
Which is why I told you to go play Myfarog since I'm told it does have human races with different attributes, mainly the "darkies" being savage, stupid and such. I think you might find it to your liking.
As for Marxists... LOL yeah, I'm totally a Marxist, this will be news for the real Marxists/Postmodernists in this forum.
I think the question of race and what marxism is goes way over your head.
As a White guy I wouldn't care who gets to be "savage, stupid and such". The point would be to educate cucks conceptually.
I would rather play a game where White are savages and get -2 Int and nothing else instead of another empty propaganda product with false egalitarianism seeping even into mythological layers of play.
Marxists deconstruct race for a variety of reasons. They managed to implant the meme of "white supremacy" (you automatically assumed I want to abuse other races!) into you head which you vehemently defend with semantic voodoo.
I like this forum because it still offers a modicum of free speech. But most reputed free thinkers here don't even understand their own shepherded role within the confines of evil globohomo. It's just a bit more convoluted and intellectualised than straight SJW thinking.
Who said anything about you abusing no one?
But you WERE talking about human races not Orcs. Please do elaborate on how deconstructed race has been. I would love to hear your ramblings about racialesentialism. Just like I love to hear them from the SJWs.
The point of the thread is not to make PF2 but with different propaganda, it's about making 5e without propaganda.
I don't care about propaganda, I don't want it in my entertainment, not even the one from groups I agree with.
And I'm sure must of us here agree with that.
Propaganda = there are no races, we differ strongly and that's a good thing
RPG without propaganda = there are races who differ even more wildly and that's an awesome thing to play
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 02:39:00 PM
Propaganda = there are no races, we differ strongly and that's a good thing
RPG without propaganda = there are races who differ even more wildly and that's an awesome thing to play
For RPG purposes there are no human races, our differences are so little as to have no mechanical impact (unless you plan on roleplaying how often one gets what type of cancer?)
In order to be "realistic" it has way more mechanical impact the differences between male/female.
But then again you're not trying to make a fun game but a game that "fights" the SJWs. Not what most of us care about. Like we don't care about a game that "fights" colonialism/racism/etc.
Both ARE propaganda.
You seem to think that propaganda has to be false, it doesn't.
Of course there are. There's a diving adapted race (I forgot the name) which would be a toal game changer in an aquatic setting. East Africans have a clear endurance boost. West Africans clearly have more fast twitch muscle potential. Europeans clearly have a creativity advantage. Pygmies obviously suffer from harsh penalties regarding height, strength and so on but are probably better hunters, something they are adapted towards. I could go on and on.
A game that is rooted in reality is more fun than a game that wants everybody to play in queer wonderland. You can go absolutely bonkers with a setting but there has to be the element of believability.
QuoteNot what most of us care about. Like we don't care about a game that "fights" colonialism/racism/etc.
You couldn't be more wrong because your default perspective has already been marximised. There's a reason you don't care about race. Because others who care about "colonialism" were the ones who brainwashed you in the first place regarding the irrelevancy of race.
You think some education gave you the insight to selectively ignore biology. But it's been carefully and methodically implanted in you, probably for decades.
We live in an age where anybody can just claim that he's a woman or a tree. Crucial biological differences are ignored because several factions (some are insane, others greedy or power hungry) serendipitously are in control over cultural narratives. They profit from this outrageous dissolution of self-evident truths. But it's not just a chaotic rule of mad despots, who liberally wield the whip, of course not. There's plenty of incentives for behaving. Adhering to these new norms gives people the illusion of "doing the right thing" or "speaking out against opression" - virtue signaling.
There's absolutely no reason to not include human races as a default.
In fact, this is part of the initial success of fantasy role playing games. An escapist vehicle with clear good and evil, heroes and villains, explicit races and implicit divine order.And this is what they have been attacking over the last decade. And you are marching with them, your progressive friends are just two steps ahead. Don't worry, you'll catch up.
I can't really find a good way to make a mechanical difference between male and female. Every time I try the male human ends up being objectively just better at everything necessary for adventuring. I can make an argument for a higher charisma cap for females, due to the tendencies of being much more social thus able to persuade people and attract more followers but even that it is hard to accurately represent through just attributes the various circumstances that go into being a leader. Unless the setting has certain gender restricted classes or roles....
But yeah, if i did ever implement something like that i'd give a cap to strength for females and maybe cap male charisma? Right now I just kind of roll with the idea that players are abnormal and just represent that in the world. It's rare for me to make a female town guard or soldier unless it's a clear exception, and not the norm.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 03:44:00 PMEast Africans have a clear endurance boost. West Africans clearly have more fast twitch muscle potential.
Sigh. That's a really broad brush you're using to paint a stereotype. It's not East Africans in general who win all those running awards. It's overwhelmingly the Oromo in Ethiopia and the Kalenjin of Kenya, who are a tiny percentage of the population of those countries. They live in a handful of villages in the Great Rift Valley. It seems to be due to a complex mix of diet, high altitudes, childhood behavior, running habits, cultural reinforcement, and other environmental factors. There may be a genetic component, but it hasn't been proven, and most of the supposed traits attributed to them in folklore have been proven to be false. The same is true for the runners of Jamaica, of West African descent.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/34/5/391
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Actn3-Genotype-Is-Not-Associated-With-Elite-Athlete-Yang-MacArthur/c7a8d3636b2013c4fe1c4edd176fae3187d8ce18
https://www.pubfacts.com/detail/20845221/ACTN3-R577X-and-other-polymorphisms-are-not-associated-with-elite-endurance-athlete-status-in-the-Ge
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/running-circles-around-us-east-african-olympians-advantage-may-be-more-than-physical/
If you're going to create alternate human races, you might as well go with something like Ringworld-level diversity. You could call some of the
Homo sapiens variants things like ogres, ghouls, elves, and dwarves.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 03, 2021, 12:11:36 PM
To give just one example of what I mean, after deciding to start from scratch, I ended up with attributes of Might, Lore, Will, Dexterity, Agility, and Perception. You might notice some distinct missing things. Retrofitting that into 5E is difficult, even if you pretend that Lore is really Int and Will is really Wis (and they aren't, thus the rename, and if you twist them back to Int and Wis should change the names back, and around and around we go). I didn't decide that just to be different. I didn't rename things to be cute. I didn't pick 6 attributes in some kind of false symmetry to the source material. Rather, I built the concepts I wanted, the classes and rules around them, and then named the things what they are. Intelligence and Wisdom are something the player brings. Charisma effects are off in another section of the rules entirely. For my design goals, it's a reasonable sacrifice to say that Str/Con gets rolled up into Might, that Dex gets broken into Dex/Agi, and that perceptive characters pay for that with a lower attribute elsewhere.
I didn't try to deliberately as far from D&D as you did, but once I dropped the OGL/SRD and had to name my own stats, I did find NOT having to try and match the D&D expectations to be helpful.
Strength was a gimme for me just because its such a quantifiable real thing. For warriors it can even boost your performance with a Bow (you have the strength to hold the string back long enough to do some last moment aiming adjustments while a weaker person would have to aim as they're drawing because they don't have the strength to hold it once drawn). It can also aid with your armor defense because you have the strength to shift position rapidly despite the weight of your armor or shield on your limbs, making it easier for you to position it so the result is a glancing blow.
Endurance was necessary because my greater understanding of physical performance (its why the Fitness skill used to boost climbing, jumping, swimming and lifting is based on Endurance and not Strength, which is baseline performance without pushing yourself) and most of the limited use boosts to abilities being based on "pushing yourself/digging into your long term reserves" in order to remain something character facing rather than a metagame mechanic (i.e. a character can choose to really go all out and push themselves past their comfort zone... it doesn't require the player to step out of their PC's head and say "conditions are right for this to happen so I'm invoking ability X").
Reflexes was because, frankly, speed and hand-eye coordination are important things, but there's a lot of ground to cover in terms of stats and I really didn't want to go above 6 if I didn't have to. One important difference is that while it can be used for your Dodge defense, you can also use the Wits attribute (you notice the incoming danger earlier and so have more time to evade) and Dodge can be used in place of the Armor defense if its higher (rare if you're in medium armor and almost unheard of for heavy armor, but fairly common for light/no armor where a PC has neither high Strength nor Reflexes). With the right training you can use it to make accurate attacks with lighter weapons (including some heavier weapons used with both hands), but its largely useless with the heavy melee weapons even if you're a warrior.
Wits was what grew out of Wisdom and basically traded places with Intellect in terms of possibly determining your Willpower defense. It became mental reaction time and pattern recognition vs. any sort of willpower or spiritual understanding. Its main skills fall mostly under the pattern recognition side; Insight replaces Perception and is also a sort of hybrid with what used to be called Sense Motive. The idea is that you see what you see, you can't really train your eyes to see more clearly or your ears to hear softer sounds than they naturally do. What you CAN train is your ability to recognize and contextualize what you're perceiving. You learn what common cues are for various emotional states, you know the signs to look for when you're tracking quarry, etc. Medicine (particularly the basically battlefield variety most PCs will be employing on each other) and Nature are similarly about reading clues and signs to contextualize things and be able to act on the book learning in your head. Wits is also the primary casting attribute of natural spellcasters; Mystics and Sorcerers in my setting.
Intellect is basically your ability to reason and recall information without necessarily having context which is why Arcana (which is mostly about lore) and Culture (which is mostly about etiquette and plays a role in learning new languages) are both Intellect based along with Engineering. It also can be used for the Willpower defense, essentially using logic and reason to work past illusions and mystical compulsions and the like. Its the primary casting attribute for gadgeteers and wizards, both of which involve solving complex mathematics-like computations in real time in order to aim and direct their spells.
Lastly Presence is what it says on the tin. How much force of personality do you have; its the default for social interactions (though Wits can help in determining avenues of approach) but at best just affects how people take your words; they aren't mind control (ex. a high Persuade check against the King telling him that he should turn over rule of his kingdom to you means he takes it in the best way possible and presumes you are joking, a low check means he takes it in the worst possible way; that you are deliberately insulting the king by saying you can do a better job than him). It also lets you push through effects that target Willpower through sheer sense of self. It is the primary casting attribute of the Theurges (in D&D terms divine magic, though it also would include the D&D warlock) whose magic comes from making pacts/investitures with the Astral Gods and other astral powers so your own force of personality determines the power you coaxed from your pacts/investitures.
Quote from: Ocule on August 03, 2021, 03:58:45 PM
I can't really find a good way to make a mechanical difference between male and female. Every time I try the male human ends up being objectively just better at everything necessary for adventuring. I can make an argument for a higher charisma cap for females, due to the tendencies of being much more social thus able to persuade people and attract more followers but even that it is hard to accurately represent through just attributes the various circumstances that go into being a leader. Unless the setting has certain gender restricted classes or roles....
But yeah, if i did ever implement something like that i'd give a cap to strength for females and maybe cap male charisma? Right now I just kind of roll with the idea that players are abnormal and just represent that in the world. It's rare for me to make a female town guard or soldier unless it's a clear exception, and not the norm.
If I were to apply them to my set of stats I'd give male humans a bonus to Strength and Reflexes and female humans a bonus to Wits and Presence. This would make human males naturally the best Fighters, human females the best Mystics and Theurges and neither sex having an advantage with the Mastermind, Wizard or Gadgeteer classes.
Now, within those categories though its worth noting that there are different focuses. Basically, each class has a set of options that correspond to the non-primary attributes for the class; Fighters have either Strength or Reflexes primary, so have options for Daring (Presence), Tactical (Intellect) or Wary (Wits) focuses each with their own benefits. Similarly, Mystics fall into four categories that align to Strength, Reflexes, Intellect and Presence; again each with their own benefits.
So female human mystics would be naturally best with the branch that also uses Presence and might be an okay Fighter if they went with the Daring or Wary focus (their primary wouldn't be as good, but their secondary would be better than a male with the same starting stats). Likewise, males would better at the Militant (Strength; your armored warpriest cleric as likely to smite you with his god's chosen weapon as a spell) path for the Theurge while females would be best at the Faithful path (Wits; light armor, best attacks are using magic).
This would create a distinct, but not rigorously enforced, divide between class preferences. Magic in this setting would more akin to the Colt pistol; an equalizer between the raw physical prowess of males compared to females; at least among the 1:100,000 population of adventurers who even HAVE magic.
And while I DO use the above as unstated guidelines for my sample PCs (there are 3 per race/kind in the book; the female human example is a spellcaster, the males are warriors), its basically not worth the effort in a world with playable dragons, minotaurs, lizardmen, dryads and mutants to bother with an extra level of distinction between male and female humans. Between the lingering magic radiation and unrealized minor genetic mutations that it can cause (if someone lives long enough in one of the Cataclysm hotspots their offspring are likely to be mutants not humans)... if someone wants to make a human female who's as strong as a male I really don't feel its a hill worth dying on to tell them no.
The list of olympic sprinters makes it abundantly clear who is talented.
Studies are increasingly unfiltered propaganda these days. They now have produced several papers showing that trannies are totally not insane, that people are comfortable with them around their children and so on.
It might not be the ACTN3 allele, it might be a hyper complex array of dozens of genes. But it does not matter. We know the result. When it comes to sprinting, there is practically no cultural filter in place. We all run. The Chinese select the best from a billion people who are highly motivated and train hard. Their system and facilities is miles ahead of anything the caribbean has to offer. It is ludicrous to tactically use genetics to disprove huge observable biological differences (I bet you love studies about IQ!). In 5-15 years, we will know which genes are responsible and they will cluster perfectly with west Africans. Just like all races have some unique talents by necessity.
Oh... I thought we were gonna talk about actual important system stuff.
We're still talking about identarian pseudo-politics as fun? Don't shit where you eat, boys.
Quote from: Ocule on August 03, 2021, 03:58:45 PM
I can't really find a good way to make a mechanical difference between male and female. Every time I try the male human ends up being objectively just better at everything necessary for adventuring. I can make an argument for a higher charisma cap for females, due to the tendencies of being much more social thus able to persuade people and attract more followers but even that it is hard to accurately represent through just attributes the various circumstances that go into being a leader. Unless the setting has certain gender restricted classes or roles....
But yeah, if i did ever implement something like that i'd give a cap to strength for females and maybe cap male charisma? Right now I just kind of roll with the idea that players are abnormal and just represent that in the world. It's rare for me to make a female town guard or soldier unless it's a clear exception, and not the norm.
Yeah that's probably the best way for most campaigns.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 04:40:12 PM
The list of olympic sprinters makes it abundantly clear who is talented.
Studies are increasingly unfiltered propaganda these days. They now have produced several papers showing that trannies are totally not insane, that people are comfortable with them around their children and so on.
It might not be the ACTN3 allele, it might be a hyper complex array of dozens of genes. But it does not matter. We know the result. When it comes to sprinting, there is practically no cultural filter in place. We all run. The Chinese select the best from a billion people who are highly motivated and train hard. Their system and facilities is miles ahead of anything the caribbean has to offer. It is ludicrous to tactically use genetics to disprove huge observable biological differences (I bet you love studies about IQ!). In 5-15 years, we will know which genes are responsible and they will cluster perfectly with west Africans. Just like all races have some unique talents by necessity.
Blah blah blah. Boring. This game sucks.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 03:44:00 PM
Of course there are. There's a diving adapted race (I forgot the name) which would be a toal game changer in an aquatic setting. East Africans have a clear endurance boost. West Africans clearly have more fast twitch muscle potential. Europeans clearly have a creativity advantage. Pygmies obviously suffer from harsh penalties regarding height, strength and so on but are probably better hunters, something they are adapted towards. I could go on and on.
A game that is rooted in reality is more fun than a game that wants everybody to play in queer wonderland. You can go absolutely bonkers with a setting but there has to be the element of believability.
QuoteNot what most of us care about. Like we don't care about a game that "fights" colonialism/racism/etc.
You couldn't be more wrong because your default perspective has already been marximised. There's a reason you don't care about race. Because others who care about "colonialism" were the ones who brainwashed you in the first place regarding the irrelevancy of race.
You think some education gave you the insight to selectively ignore biology. But it's been carefully and methodically implanted in you, probably for decades.
We live in an age where anybody can just claim that he's a woman or a tree. Crucial biological differences are ignored because several factions (some are insane, others greedy or power hungry) serendipitously are in control over cultural narratives. They profit from this outrageous dissolution of self-evident truths. But it's not just a chaotic rule of mad despots, who liberally wield the whip, of course not. There's plenty of incentives for behaving. Adhering to these new norms gives people the illusion of "doing the right thing" or "speaking out against opression" - virtue signaling.
There's absolutely no reason to not include human races as a default.
In fact, this is part of the initial success of fantasy role playing games. An escapist vehicle with clear good and evil, heroes and villains, explicit races and implicit divine order.
And this is what they have been attacking over the last decade. And you are marching with them, your progressive friends are just two steps ahead. Don't worry, you'll catch up.
Congratulations, you just proved you're a racial essentialist, just like the SJWs.
Welcome to the muted zone.
Quote from: tenbones on August 03, 2021, 04:42:20 PM
Oh... I thought we were gonna talk about actual important system stuff.
We're still talking about identarian pseudo-politics as fun? Don't shit where you eat, boys.
Some of us are trying, but the identitarian came to shit the bed, and I can't find how to mute him.
Quote from: tenbones on August 03, 2021, 12:11:11 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 12:09:14 PM
IMHO there shouldn't be any sacred cows.
In spirit I agree. But we both have been around long enough to know those fuckers are grazing on our fertile soil as we speak. They must be slain and offered back up to to the Gaming Gods with a new Covenant that we can do better!
In the spirit of sacrificing those sacred cows in the altars of Cool & Good Gaming:
In the core rules, Which races, classes, spells, skills, feats would you leave in?
Since it's aiming to being compatible with 5e I would go for a shorter list on everything and instead of all that better play examples, better explanations thinking not everyone has any clue as to how to GM/Play.
Now, should it have as many classes as 5e? Or a much shorter list with paths?
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 03, 2021, 04:39:07 PM
Strength was a gimme for me just because its such a quantifiable real thing.
That sounds convenient to me.
Static strength is easy to quantify; functional strength -- the kind useful for fighting enemies, for example -- is notoriously difficult or impossible to quantify.
For example, does "Strength" in your game benefit Climbing? Because there is an
inverse relationship between being a strong powerlifter and a good climber.
Ditto for "fighting". Notice how champion fighters are lean, while champion weightlifters are thick. Guys that can press 300lbs get mauled in the ring.
Now I'm not saying your ability scores aren't good: if they follow from the setting and the player-character experience you're trying to create, then they're fine. But I wouldn't go so far as to claim "strength is quantifiable, therefore it's a good ability score for my game."
...
Quote from: Ocule on August 03, 2021, 03:58:45 PM
I can't really find a good way to make a mechanical difference between male and female. Every time I try the male human ends up being objectively just better at everything necessary for adventuring. I can make an argument for a higher charisma cap for females, due to the tendencies of being much more social thus able to persuade people and attract more followers but even that it is hard to accurately represent through just attributes the various circumstances that go into being a leader. Unless the setting has certain gender restricted classes or roles....
But yeah, if i did ever implement something like that i'd give a cap to strength for females and maybe cap male charisma? Right now I just kind of roll with the idea that players are abnormal and just represent that in the world. It's rare for me to make a female town guard or soldier unless it's a clear exception, and not the norm.
Monkey with the low end of the scale, not the high. I'll use old fashioned D&D, roll 3d6 in order as an example, but you can use the idea for almost any system with a random or semi-random component, and even arrays or point buy with a little work: Roll stats as normal. If male, if your Str is under 9, +1 to it. Otherwise, get +1 to your lowest ability. If female, if your Dex is under 9, +1 to it. Otherwise, get +1 to your lowest ability. There. It will be very rare for the differences to touch adventurers to the extent of influencing class choices. But your general population will be slightly more realistic. Move the threshold around or otherwise complicate to taste.
Careful, RL empirical data gets you on MarxyBugle's naughty list!
It seems sensible to grant east Asians +2 math for Harry Potter style campaigns.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 03:44:00 PMOf course there are. There's a diving adapted race (I forgot the name) which would be a toal game changer in an aquatic setting.
The Bajau? Thousands of years of natural selection have increased the size of their spleens allowing them to dive for longer without needing to come up for breath.
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science-and-technology/2018/04/sea-nomads-are-first-known-humans-genetically-adapted-diving
Some idea detritus
Strength is how much you can lift
Grip is how well you can hold on
Power is how hard you can hit or struggle when gripped.
Reaction is your speed of identifying a need for and launching a task rapidly by muscle memory. Initiative & dodge
Accuracy is your hand eye coordination and fast processing of adjustments
Steadiness is how still you can be, do your hands shake, etc.
Agility is your ability to balance while being shifted
Grace is your ability by training to use agility and steadiness together to do complex acrobatics or complex things like weaving a rope quickly.
Flexibility is your ability to change shape to fit through crevices and roll with punches.
Endurance is how long you can move violently without losing your wind
Forbearance is how long you can hold a single pose or commit to a grip or avoid being impaired by an injury and is related to suppressing fear and building physical discipline
Condition is your healing rate + resistance to infections or poison and ability to shrug off some injuries because you a tough boy.
Perception is your ability to use your senses to detect and interpret things you hear see smell taste and touch or psychically link to or whatever.
Accuity is your ability to link clues together into a narrative and understand them, Great for spotting problems with illusions or realizing someone is mistaken or lying. based in analysis and deduction.
Cleverness is your ability to intuit solutions to problems from perhaps laterally connected facts or clues. This is what lets you build and disarm traps or make things out of other things. good for designing experiments and innovations.
Concentration is your ability to resist distraction and protect your mind from psychic assault or thought burglary. It also helps you keep watch and avoid becoming bored and can protect against being sleepy.
Sagacity is the ease with which you can recall things accurately and can be expanded though training in mnemonic techniques.
Sensibility is one's grounding in reality that makes one reluctant to buy into unlikely conclusions. It also includes self knowledge that contributes to prudence and patience. Similar to but more instinctual than discipline.
Affability is how easily you relate to others and how easily they relate to you. Amounts mostly to openness or dedication to social protocols and courtesy and sensitivity to how others perceive you and consideration for what you presume they want of you.
Allure is how attractive you are at a distance, your features, posture, can be affected by grace or other physical attributes and how well you dress or how competent you seem.
Presence is how easy it is for you to be noticed and stand out from the background or a crowd. Presence can be temporarily modified with acting or disguise or even having someone else put on a distraction or doing something like blowing a horn.
Well there is a pile of...stuff.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 05:03:41 PM
In the spirit of sacrificing those sacred cows in the altars of Cool & Good Gaming:
In the core rules, Which races, classes, spells, skills, feats would you leave in?
Since it's aiming to being compatible with 5e I would go for a shorter list on everything and instead of all that better play examples, better explanations thinking not everyone has any clue as to how to GM/Play.
Now, should it have as many classes as 5e? Or a much shorter list with paths?
There is a tension between a short list being more playable while allowing the most options possible. Chris is correct that the ultimate way out of that is to separate elements (class, background, etc.) more for mix and match, but there are some brakes on that in a 5E clone. So spitballing a compromise:
Fighter - paths for archer, knight, warrior, arcane dabbler, divine dabbler.
Ranger - paths for scout, hunter (lots of overlap with archer), beast master, nature magic dabbler.
Rogue - paths for thief, assassin, arcane dabbler (Gray Mouser!), martial arts/unarmed (depending on how far you want to push it, no KI)
Wizard (solid spell casting, practically zero combat and modest skills) - paths for battle mage (combat/magic mix), lore master (magic/skill mix), sorcerer (go all out magic), and some kind of school specialist thing where you really lather on the extra spells/abilities in that school.
Priest - (moderate holy spell casting, modest combat and armor, modest skills) - paths for paladin, magi (need better name, all out holy magic), mystic (modest boost on casting, combat, and skills, or add KI back in), monk (if you didn't do it with the mystic).
Shaman - (moderate nature magic and skills) - paths for bard (add the magic music back in), druid (all out magic or slight magic and shapeshifting, your call), shifter (if you went all out magic on the druid), witch doctor (gets to dabble in arcane along with the nature magic)
Of course, you can and will tweak due to play testing. It's entirely possible that the mystic will end up lame in execution but you've got another good idea that fits under priest. If set on keeping the Bard in the "Wizard lite" category with 5E, can always replace the lore master with that. I like my bards a little closer to the source material.
Skills are divided into two categories: Adventuring and Background. Or just call the latter "Skills". That crucial stuff that everyone uses in the typical 5E game goes into the very short Adventuring list, though you might expand it with a few call outs to classic abilities. Perception, sneaking, climbing, etc. Optionally, make the background skills such that they can stack based on the situation. (Your Skullduggery adventuring lets you find traps and pick locks. Your background in locksmith gives you a hefty bonus on the picking but not the traps, enough that can probably pick a lot of locks without even having Skullduggery.)
Now, if it were me, I'd drop to about 15 levels, give levels to backgrounds, and then tie
ALL feats and background skills to leveling in the background. Up to you whether to do 1E style multi-classing with class and background advancing together for simplicity or split them in 5E style and let the character pick where to put the XP. No other multi-classing allowed. You could make a case for allowing a feat use to pick up an Adventuring skill, allowing some crossover for those isolated character concepts that wants to be the warrior that picks locks, etc. If there are some cool, iconic class abilities, those are clearly siloed in the class. For example, in my non-clone, I've got a different initiative system where fighters that win initiative get a bonus attack at the end of the round. I like the latter option because it lets you provide some quick and dirty templates for common choices with everything one one page, one grid for the progression. Not every fighter is the same abilities, but every fighter/knight/noble gets the same picks.
palaeomerus, I've tried really hard to use Grace as a characteristic in 3 game designs now, and every single time it had to come out. It sits at a strange dividing line that evidently does not make for good distinctions in games that I like. :D
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 03:44:00 PM
Of course there are. There's a diving adapted race (I forgot the name) which would be a toal game changer in an aquatic setting. East Africans have a clear endurance boost. West Africans clearly have more fast twitch muscle potential. Europeans clearly have a creativity advantage. Pygmies obviously suffer from harsh penalties regarding height, strength and so on but are probably better hunters, something they are adapted towards. I could go on and on.
Quote from: Pat on August 03, 2021, 04:20:04 PM
Sigh. That's a really broad brush you're using to paint a stereotype. It's not East Africans in general who win all those running awards. It's overwhelmingly the Oromo in Ethiopia and the Kalenjin of Kenya, who are a tiny percentage of the population of those countries. They live in a handful of villages in the Great Rift Valley. It seems to be due to a complex mix of diet, high altitudes, childhood behavior, running habits, cultural reinforcement, and other environmental factors. There may be a genetic component, but it hasn't been proven, and most of the supposed traits attributed to them in folklore have been proven to be false. The same is true for the runners of Jamaica, of West African descent.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 04:40:12 PM
The list of olympic sprinters makes it abundantly clear who is talented.
Studies are increasingly unfiltered propaganda these days. They now have produced several papers showing that trannies are totally not insane, that people are comfortable with them around their children and so on.
It might not be the ACTN3 allele, it might be a hyper complex array of dozens of genes. But it does not matter. We know the result. When it comes to sprinting, there is practically no cultural filter in place. We all run. The Chinese select the best from a billion people who are highly motivated and train hard. Their system and facilities is miles ahead of anything the caribbean has to offer. It is ludicrous to tactically use genetics to disprove huge observable biological differences (I bet you love studies about IQ!). In 5-15 years, we will know which genes are responsible and they will cluster perfectly with west Africans. Just like all races have some unique talents by necessity.
Over the past century, the predictions of what racial genetics will find have not corresponded well with what was actually found. I agree that there are genes that are common only in certain areas. For example, ABCC11 causes dry ear wax and a lack of body odor predominantly in East Asians. However, dry ear wax and lack of body odor were never part of the racial stereotypes of East Asians. I don't know of any genetic discovery that has isolated any of the sort of predicted trait like you're suggesting.
But in the bigger picture, for RPG purposes, there's no utility to distinguishing what is environmental versus what is genetic. In a fantasy world, the science of genetics doesn't even exist, and old-school fantasy games have traditionally lumped together cultural, environmental, and genetic benefits. I suppose if your intent is to annoy certain people, then if fulfills that intent, go for it -- but it seems like you're annoying a lot more than just marxists.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 04:43:31 PM
Quote from: Ocule on August 03, 2021, 03:58:45 PM
I can't really find a good way to make a mechanical difference between male and female. Every time I try the male human ends up being objectively just better at everything necessary for adventuring. I can make an argument for a higher charisma cap for females, due to the tendencies of being much more social thus able to persuade people and attract more followers but even that it is hard to accurately represent through just attributes the various circumstances that go into being a leader. Unless the setting has certain gender restricted classes or roles....
But yeah, if i did ever implement something like that i'd give a cap to strength for females and maybe cap male charisma? Right now I just kind of roll with the idea that players are abnormal and just represent that in the world. It's rare for me to make a female town guard or soldier unless it's a clear exception, and not the norm.
Yeah that's probably the best way for most campaigns.
I don't get this, given your previous preferences. Men and women have much more clear and important genetic differences than different human races. Despite this, it sounds like you're willing to ignore gender differences in RPGs but insist on differences for race?
Quote from: Ocule on August 03, 2021, 03:58:45 PMI can't really find a good way to make a mechanical difference between male and female. Every time I try the male human ends up being objectively just better at everything necessary for adventuring. I can make an argument for a higher charisma cap for females, due to the tendencies of being much more social thus able to persuade people and attract more followers but even that it is hard to accurately represent through just attributes the various circumstances that go into being a leader.
Last time I looked in to it, I had male humans having the higher STR, while female humans had higher CON, INT, and WIS. CON because women measurably live longer. INT because they get better grades in school. And WIS because they don't tend to kill themselves while they are young. I couldn't find any statistical evidence to justify differences in CHA or DEX. But, yes, males would have an advantage iff your party was nothing but strength based fighters.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 03, 2021, 06:47:10 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 05:03:41 PM
In the spirit of sacrificing those sacred cows in the altars of Cool & Good Gaming:
In the core rules, Which races, classes, spells, skills, feats would you leave in?
Since it's aiming to being compatible with 5e I would go for a shorter list on everything and instead of all that better play examples, better explanations thinking not everyone has any clue as to how to GM/Play.
Now, should it have as many classes as 5e? Or a much shorter list with paths?
There is a tension between a short list being more playable while allowing the most options possible. Chris is correct that the ultimate way out of that is to separate elements (class, background, etc.) more for mix and match, but there are some brakes on that in a 5E clone. So spitballing a compromise:
Fighter - paths for archer, knight, warrior, arcane dabbler, divine dabbler.
Ranger - paths for scout, hunter (lots of overlap with archer), beast master, nature magic dabbler.
Rogue - paths for thief, assassin, arcane dabbler (Gray Mouser!), martial arts/unarmed (depending on how far you want to push it, no KI)
Wizard (solid spell casting, practically zero combat and modest skills) - paths for battle mage (combat/magic mix), lore master (magic/skill mix), sorcerer (go all out magic), and some kind of school specialist thing where you really lather on the extra spells/abilities in that school.
Priest - (moderate holy spell casting, modest combat and armor, modest skills) - paths for paladin, magi (need better name, all out holy magic), mystic (modest boost on casting, combat, and skills, or add KI back in), monk (if you didn't do it with the mystic).
Shaman - (moderate nature magic and skills) - paths for bard (add the magic music back in), druid (all out magic or slight magic and shapeshifting, your call), shifter (if you went all out magic on the druid), witch doctor (gets to dabble in arcane along with the nature magic)
Of course, you can and will tweak due to play testing. It's entirely possible that the mystic will end up lame in execution but you've got another good idea that fits under priest. If set on keeping the Bard in the "Wizard lite" category with 5E, can always replace the lore master with that. I like my bards a little closer to the source material.
Skills are divided into two categories: Adventuring and Background. Or just call the latter "Skills". That crucial stuff that everyone uses in the typical 5E game goes into the very short Adventuring list, though you might expand it with a few call outs to classic abilities. Perception, sneaking, climbing, etc. Optionally, make the background skills such that they can stack based on the situation. (Your Skullduggery adventuring lets you find traps and pick locks. Your background in locksmith gives you a hefty bonus on the picking but not the traps, enough that can probably pick a lot of locks without even having Skullduggery.)
Now, if it were me, I'd drop to about 15 levels, give levels to backgrounds, and then tie ALL feats and background skills to leveling in the background. Up to you whether to do 1E style multi-classing with class and background advancing together for simplicity or split them in 5E style and let the character pick where to put the XP. No other multi-classing allowed. You could make a case for allowing a feat use to pick up an Adventuring skill, allowing some crossover for those isolated character concepts that wants to be the warrior that picks locks, etc. If there are some cool, iconic class abilities, those are clearly siloed in the class. For example, in my non-clone, I've got a different initiative system where fighters that win initiative get a bonus attack at the end of the round. I like the latter option because it lets you provide some quick and dirty templates for common choices with everything one one page, one grid for the progression. Not every fighter is the same abilities, but every fighter/knight/noble gets the same picks.
Let me see if I understood you correctly:
Wizard is the background and Battle Mage the class?
Quote from: jhkim on August 03, 2021, 06:54:37 PM
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 03:44:00 PM
Of course there are. There's a diving adapted race (I forgot the name) which would be a toal game changer in an aquatic setting. East Africans have a clear endurance boost. West Africans clearly have more fast twitch muscle potential. Europeans clearly have a creativity advantage. Pygmies obviously suffer from harsh penalties regarding height, strength and so on but are probably better hunters, something they are adapted towards. I could go on and on.
Quote from: Pat on August 03, 2021, 04:20:04 PM
Sigh. That's a really broad brush you're using to paint a stereotype. It's not East Africans in general who win all those running awards. It's overwhelmingly the Oromo in Ethiopia and the Kalenjin of Kenya, who are a tiny percentage of the population of those countries. They live in a handful of villages in the Great Rift Valley. It seems to be due to a complex mix of diet, high altitudes, childhood behavior, running habits, cultural reinforcement, and other environmental factors. There may be a genetic component, but it hasn't been proven, and most of the supposed traits attributed to them in folklore have been proven to be false. The same is true for the runners of Jamaica, of West African descent.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 04:40:12 PM
The list of olympic sprinters makes it abundantly clear who is talented.
Studies are increasingly unfiltered propaganda these days. They now have produced several papers showing that trannies are totally not insane, that people are comfortable with them around their children and so on.
It might not be the ACTN3 allele, it might be a hyper complex array of dozens of genes. But it does not matter. We know the result. When it comes to sprinting, there is practically no cultural filter in place. We all run. The Chinese select the best from a billion people who are highly motivated and train hard. Their system and facilities is miles ahead of anything the caribbean has to offer. It is ludicrous to tactically use genetics to disprove huge observable biological differences (I bet you love studies about IQ!). In 5-15 years, we will know which genes are responsible and they will cluster perfectly with west Africans. Just like all races have some unique talents by necessity.
Over the past century, the predictions of what racial genetics will find have not corresponded well with what was actually found. I agree that there are genes that are common only in certain areas. For example, ABCC11 causes dry ear wax and a lack of body odor predominantly in East Asians. However, dry ear wax and lack of body odor were never part of the racial stereotypes of East Asians. I don't know of any genetic discovery that has isolated any of the sort of predicted trait like you're suggesting.
But in the bigger picture, for RPG purposes, there's no utility to distinguishing what is environmental versus what is genetic. In a fantasy world, the science of genetics doesn't even exist, and old-school fantasy games have traditionally lumped together cultural, environmental, and genetic benefits. I suppose if your intent is to annoy certain people, then if fulfills that intent, go for it -- but it seems like you're annoying a lot more than just marxists.
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on August 03, 2021, 04:43:31 PM
Quote from: Ocule on August 03, 2021, 03:58:45 PM
I can't really find a good way to make a mechanical difference between male and female. Every time I try the male human ends up being objectively just better at everything necessary for adventuring. I can make an argument for a higher charisma cap for females, due to the tendencies of being much more social thus able to persuade people and attract more followers but even that it is hard to accurately represent through just attributes the various circumstances that go into being a leader. Unless the setting has certain gender restricted classes or roles....
But yeah, if i did ever implement something like that i'd give a cap to strength for females and maybe cap male charisma? Right now I just kind of roll with the idea that players are abnormal and just represent that in the world. It's rare for me to make a female town guard or soldier unless it's a clear exception, and not the norm.
Yeah that's probably the best way for most campaigns.
I don't get this, given your previous preferences. Men and women have much more clear and important genetic differences than different human races. Despite this, it sounds like you're willing to ignore gender differences in RPGs but insist on differences for race?
Worst, he's derailing the thread to his racial essentialism discussion. Instead of creating his own thread to discuss how better to anoy the SJWs.
Quote from: palaeomerus on August 03, 2021, 06:20:18 PM
Some idea detritus
<snip>
Well there is a pile of...stuff.
8)
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 07:04:03 PM
Let me see if I understood you correctly:
Wizard is the background and Battle Mage the class?
No, Wizard is the class. Battle Mage is the path/archetype/class specialization thing that you pick to finish the class, similar to how the 5E Fighter is the class and Champion is the specialization. Compared to 5E, the classes should be relatively weak and the "paths" bring them back up to a solid mix. That lets you do things like have Rangers with no spells (because the ones that don't pick paths with spells get other good stuff instead). The inherent fail in the 5E implementation is that they put too much in the base class, which makes it difficult to do any serious branching with the path options.
Separate from that is the background idea. You could do the class/path thing and leave background similar to 5E. Or you could do what I suggested where background becomes a more powerful thing. I suggest the latter because I think part of the problem with 5E skills is that they tried to split the baby on skills and still have the class dominate, but that doesn't work very well for what skills are supposed to represent in 5E. There really are two different types--class stuff that is all about skill versus world simulation options.
Edit: Also, I think race, class, background, skill, and feat is too much for D&D. Especially with race, background, and feat being all but stubs. Think about it from a BEMCI clone instead of a 5E clone for a minute. We need to reserve "Class" for the final combined thing. Then I maybe have mechanical widgets of Adventurer (Fighter, Wizard, etc.), Race, and Skills. Each one of those have leveling things. Mix and match to produce the class/level chart. (I wouldn't really do a BEMCI clone that way. Besides, ACKS already has a better class customization route that is more compatible. It's a thought exercise to think about how to do it in 5E.)
Quote from: jhkim on August 03, 2021, 06:54:37 PM
Over the past century, the predictions of what racial genetics will find have not corresponded well with what was actually found. I agree that there are genes that are common only in certain areas. For example, ABCC11 causes dry ear wax and a lack of body odor predominantly in East Asians. However, dry ear wax and lack of body odor were never part of the racial stereotypes of East Asians. I don't know of any genetic discovery that has isolated any of the sort of predicted trait like you're suggesting.
But in the bigger picture, for RPG purposes, there's no utility to distinguishing what is environmental versus what is genetic. In a fantasy world, the science of genetics doesn't even exist, and old-school fantasy games have traditionally lumped together cultural, environmental, and genetic benefits. I suppose if your intent is to annoy certain people, then if fulfills that intent, go for it -- but it seems like you're annoying a lot more than just marxists.
Well, most people, even those who claim they hate marxists play along the approved narrative which is why we ultimately have a consensus on almost every ghastly development. Look at the many dissonant responses.
For RPG, this means that more wokisms are the future, exactly because too many are afraid of dumb labels like "racist" or "bigot" which are largely meaningless and are just standins for convoluted taboos.
I like my fantasy RPGs racial, with Dwarves as a grumpy mountain people, Orcs as evil plunderers and so forth.
However, as we slip into clown world, the insane policies transcend reality and must seep into the virtual.
This is why we can't have evil orcs and weaker women.
I absolutely agree that fantasy races and the sex differences are, broadly speaking, bigger than most racial gaps between humans (even though some differences are arguably bigger). But that is beside the point. We shouldn't argue technicalities with people who do not argue in good conscience. They want to win at all costs. And they are winning
You're also quite wrong about genetics but let's not go there, it doesn't matter that much as we are talking politics and culture.
Quote from: jhkim on August 03, 2021, 06:54:37 PM
I don't get this, given your previous preferences. Men and women have much more clear and important genetic differences than different human races. Despite this, it sounds like you're willing to ignore gender differences in RPGs but insist on differences for race?
It is simply a best practise. I would prefer a well made RPG with clear gender/sex modifiers, where women enjoy better social skills and so on.
But it is what it is. If somebody wants to play a badass amazon, who am I to disagree? "You'll be quite the freakshow for most peasants". As long as the rest of the world is still consistent I don't give a crap.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 03, 2021, 07:18:25 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 07:04:03 PM
Let me see if I understood you correctly:
Wizard is the background and Battle Mage the class?
No, Wizard is the class. Battle Mage is the path/archetype/class specialization thing that you pick to finish the class, similar to how the 5E Fighter is the class and Champion is the specialization. Compared to 5E, the classes should be relatively weak and the "paths" bring them back up to a solid mix. That lets you do things like have Rangers with no spells (because the ones that don't pick paths with spells get other good stuff instead). The inherent fail in the 5E implementation is that they put too much in the base class, which makes it difficult to do any serious branching with the path options.
Separate from that is the background idea. You could do the class/path thing and leave background similar to 5E. Or you could do what I suggested where background becomes a more powerful thing. I suggest the latter because I think part of the problem with 5E skills is that they tried to split the baby on skills and still have the class dominate, but that doesn't work very well for what skills are supposed to represent in 5E. There really are two different types--class stuff that is all about skill versus world simulation options.
Edit: Also, I think race, class, background, skill, and feat is too much for D&D. Especially with race, background, and feat being all but stubs. Think about it from a BEMCI clone instead of a 5E clone for a minute. We need to reserve "Class" for the final combined thing. Then I maybe have mechanical widgets of Adventurer (Fighter, Wizard, etc.), Race, and Skills. Each one of those have leveling things. Mix and match to produce the class/level chart. (I wouldn't really do a BEMCI clone that way. Besides, ACKS already has a better class customization route that is more compatible. It's a thought exercise to think about how to do it in 5E.)
Okay, so background is your occupation prior to becoming and adventurer yes? Like what DCC does but with a bit more mechanical impact I guess?
GB, If given levels, I'd make background a little more like Culture/5E Background. It's what you came from but also informs some of your options as you level. Barbarian would be a background. It can have some real mechanical heft that way, gated by levels. But yeah, if you went the more conservative option to preserve compatibility with 5E, then it would just be 5E backgrounds, perhaps with a little of the cultural stuff moved out of 5E races (notably, weapon and armor proficiency).
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 03, 2021, 07:40:59 PM
GB, If given levels, I'd make background a little more like Culture/5E Background. It's what you came from but also informs some of your options as you level. Barbarian would be a background. It can have some real mechanical heft that way, gated by levels. But yeah, if you went the more conservative option to preserve compatibility with 5E, then it would just be 5E backgrounds, perhaps with a little of the cultural stuff moved out of 5E races (notably, weapon and armor proficiency).
So like the cultural background in my totally not Conan game.
I don't think it has to be 100% a copy of 5e, after all we want to make a better game.
Yes, Barbarian doesn't make sense as a Class, never has and never will. Now as a cultural background...
The point of the thread here is discussing a D&D clone. I don't think within the context of a fantasy game that has pixies, giants, lizardmen, animated statues, trolls, magical beings of every shape and description, that we need to worry too much about differences in human subspecies. Now, can you have a different setting that is a lot more grounded and human-centric, sure. I really don't see a problem with a variety human subspecies in a fantasy world being described with certain advantages or disadvantages.
Either way it's sort of annoying people aren't able to be productive in their ideas.
Quote from: Zalman on August 03, 2021, 05:46:09 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 03, 2021, 04:39:07 PM
Strength was a gimme for me just because its such a quantifiable real thing.
That sounds convenient to me.
Static strength is easy to quantify; functional strength -- the kind useful for fighting enemies, for example -- is notoriously difficult or impossible to quantify.
For example, does "Strength" in your game benefit Climbing? Because there is an inverse relationship between being a strong powerlifter and a good climber.
Ditto for "fighting". Notice how champion fighters are lean, while champion weightlifters are thick. Guys that can press 300lbs get mauled in the ring.
Now I'm not saying your ability scores aren't good: if they follow from the setting and the player-character experience you're trying to create, then they're fine. But I wouldn't go so far as to claim "strength is quantifiable, therefore it's a good ability score for my game."
Well, note that in my description of Strength I specifically point out that the score IS measuring static strength. Pushing past the static values is a function of the Fitness skill that keys off the Endurance attribute.
The Fitness (Endurance) skill is also used for climbing and swimming checks.
Attacks using strength will add, at most, +2 hit over just being proficient with the weapon** (but adds more to damage) on a d20 check... so minimal.
Base Load for my equivalent of an 18 Strength is 150 lb.; you need the Mighty Strength background boon to get to weightlifter type lifting and carrying values.
So, yeah, I actually have considered those things in my evaluation of Strength as an obvious attribute.
* the system uses a rather strict form of what 5e calls bounded accuracy. Characters with skill in a weapon can either use their Strength or Reflexes (depending onnthe weapon) -or- a flat value of 3 for the attack roll (but always use Strength or Reflexes for the damage roll). Attribute scores range from -1 to 5, but 4 is the usual "best score" for a PC because getting a 5 in something really compromises your other scores (i.e. you could have a 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, -1 -or- 5, 3, 1, 0, 0, -1).
So the weakling wizard with a -1 Str but who's actually skilled with a dagger has a +6 to hit (2 for skill, 1 for the dagger being accurate and 3 in place of their Str), but deals 1d4-1 damage (average 1.5) . The strong fighter with a 4 Str and is skilled with the dagger has a slightly better +7 to hit (2 skill, 1 accurate, 4 Str), but the real difference is the 1d4+4 damage (average 6.5) they deal.
Note that a hit roll represents whether you can find an opening in your opponent's defenses and, the numbers are flat for the hit roll because once both sides are competent, there will be six-second windows of a duel where there just isn't an opening for even the greatest swordsman to exploit (though their slightly higher bonuses mean they can find some openings lesser combatants would miss). Damage is about how effectively you can exploit the openings when they do come and that's where a higher strength can make a difference with increased striking power.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 03, 2021, 05:03:41 PM
In the spirit of sacrificing those sacred cows in the altars of Cool & Good Gaming:
In the core rules, Which races, classes, spells, skills, feats would you leave in?
Since it's aiming to being compatible with 5e I would go for a shorter list on everything and instead of all that better play examples, better explanations thinking not everyone has any clue as to how to GM/Play.
Now, should it have as many classes as 5e? Or a much shorter list with paths?
So *my* goal would be simple: to emulate "D&D" on a d20 chassis with as much inclusion of the old stuff as needed to give us "the D&D" experience.
Stats - I'd keep them as they are.
Classes - Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Wizard as a baseline. We can get trickier later. If we can get a solid baseline of the big four, the inevitable expansion of classes will follow. The core concept here being once we establish what a "Class" is, we can balance them better downstream by including both benefits/penalties that will scale with the assumption of difficulty. Preferably against one another. So we might end up with a whole host of "Abilities" that we could assign a value on based on the styles of play that will cause those values to rise/fall. This is important because it means we have to cover the foundations of Combat, Social, Magic, Crafting, General Task resolution, and FEED those loops with Class-level abilities. This will insure we put the proper weight on each class which will make them lucrative for players, as well as GM's who will have the proper systems to engage those classes.
Skills - These would require a re-do. Depending on the Task Resolution circuits. The skill lists should provide the differentiation that will fuel all the Task resolution areas: Weapon Proficiencies for Combat, Persuasion, Intimidation etc. for Social, <X>Smithing for Crafting, etc. Speciality skills might be necessary as some secondary tier of effect (like you get a higher bonus with a narrow band) but I'd probably make this optional.
Big ChangesThe biggest changes I'd advocate for is something that most players never realize, but any GM that's run D&D of any edition for a length of time will understand: the sweet spot for the game is broadly between 7th and 12th level. One of the issues that has proliferated through every single edition - EXCEPT for Basic, which St. Gary was already on the record about: the game really wasn't made to go beyond 10th level.
There is a mathematical reason for this. It's not that it can't be done, it's just that the system growth over succeeding editions made the game much harder to manage despite the narrative goalposts moving ever upwards into cosmic level encounters which only exist in Adventure Modules which are very "manicured" affairs. Even then it's a headache to manage with later editions of the game. This is because in order to justify the 20-levels of progression the benefits of leveling do not keep pace with the assumed power-levels outside of spellcasting. This is, and always has been, a huge scaling issue which has been for the last three editions of the game, tried different ways to mitigate.
I do not question for a single moment that players and GM's **WANT** this kind of play. They want either granularity of setting where yes, there is that Lancelot motherfucker standing on the bridge in his chrome full-plate telling King Arthur(!) and his army to fuck right off, unless they can unhorse him. And the system can accommodate that assumed 15th+ level of play cleanly right alongside encounters with your Pseudo-Gandalf and the PC-party stand-ins for the Fellowship throwing down with four Pit Fiends er-Balrogs and their throngs of Orcs.
5e at this scale doesn't work well because it relies on HP stacks and, frankly weak design to overcome the assumed scale of power. My bet is by condensing these levels down and keeping the values lower - but the scaling the results higher as well as corresponding sub-systems you'll get WAY more bang for your buck.
Look as everyone knows I'm into Savage Worlds. I can fit a 20th level D&D PC into Savage Worlds and it would fit on an index care (or thereabouts) he would FEEL dangerous, he would BE dangerous. He'd be more flexible in what he could do in-game outside of "just being a Fighter" because there are more things to support not just his character but ALL characters - QUICKLY and EASILY.
I'm not saying D&D *can't* do any of these things - I'm saying it's more ponderous and clumsy and requires too many calculations for most GM's to do comparatively easily. And I'm speaking as someone that has done it for years and it's always a pain in the ass once your campaign grows beyond a certain scope. The system, not your campaign, cracks under its own weight. And it's because its holding onto these sacred cows while experiencing narrative scaling assumptions that Gary himself never intended *systemically*. I think that problem can be solved. Just like there is a Savage Worlds Pathfinder. I think there can be a Savages & Dragons on the other side of the fence.
I want all the complexity of AD&D and its later editions and their narrative promise, with a tighter d20 system that *scales*. Most campaigns never go much further than 10-levels for a reason.
So I'd rebalance the level progression to 10-levels. But I'd scale things so that 10th level play would be closer to ~15th+ level play in the current 20-lvl spread.
Quote from: tenbones on August 04, 2021, 08:19:08 AM...
So I'd rebalance the level progression to 10-levels. But I'd scale things so that 10th level play would be closer to ~15th+ level play in the current 20-lvl spread.
Good Post. Alternately, you can do what I did. Have 24 levels, but only give the traditional D&D bumps about every other level, which is effectively 12 levels with "half levels" built in for a finer grain, but without the hassle of "half levels". The key is that I know the design is really about 12 levels spread over that, including only bumping hit points every other level and other numbers scaled to match. Note, only makes sense if you are going to make use of that finer grain in other ways, as I am.
Or if you prefer another slant, you may have good reasons to use more than 10 to 12 levels, but "fireball" and fighters extra attacks and more hit points still has a point where it ideally goes, and it doesn't always match exactly where it was in the source material based on your other design decisions. If in the course of allocating all of those, you find yourself filling in stuff just to fill it in--then you don't need that many levels.
To Tenbones & Steven Michel, Re scaling levels down:
I have no problem with this, my favourite OSR IS WBFMAG and it only goes up to 10 levels.
As for remaking the classes, maybe we need a class builder? Something like White Lies published for free adapted to the game?
If you haven't read it you might find it interesting, it weighs everything and has tables to check the XP cost, so you can build a class rather quickly and the math is all there for future GM's to use in the making of their own Monk if needed.
It would also help in balancing the Classes.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 04, 2021, 10:34:49 AM
To Tenbones & Steven Michel, Re scaling levels down:
I have no problem with this, my favourite OSR IS WBFMAG and it only goes up to 10 levels.
As for remaking the classes, maybe we need a class builder? Something like White Lies published for free adapted to the game?
If you haven't read it you might find it interesting, it weighs everything and has tables to check the XP cost, so you can build a class rather quickly and the math is all there for future GM's to use in the making of their own Monk if needed.
It would also help in balancing the Classes.
Just an observation; this is rapidly crossing over into the "not a clone, at best a spiritual successor" territory just like my 4E-based project started out as before principles of good design demanded changes (including many of the same observations of where the problem points lie; my system started out capping at 15* vs. the 30 levels 4E had for precisely the same observed reason).
This goes to my original point; there's not enough both unique and mechanically solid enough to make 5e (like 4E before it) worth doing a straight clone of***. at best all these efforts turn into rummaging through 4E/5e's pockets for anything worth stealing and applying those to a system built with a much better foundation.**
* While 15 is technically max level for the system, the assumption I wrote the system with is that most campaigns will peak at about level 11 and finish somewhere between that and max level without necessarily reaching it.
The actual default assumptions laid out in the GM material is you'll level up after a number of challenging adventures equal to your level so you'll reach level 2 after your first adventure, level 6 after about 15 adventures, and level 11 after 55 adventures (a bit over a year of weekly sessions), with level 15 taking about 120 adventures (two and a third years of weekly sessions).
The GM can tweak that obviously, but the general idea is that levels 3-11 are basically the game's sweet spot with levels 1-2 being about a three session warm up and 12+ being for hardcore players who want to squeeze every bit of play out of those particular characters they can.
** Even the mostly straight clone of 3.5e that was Pathfinder was mostly a result of WotC cutting off Paizo's main revenue stream and Paizo needing basically a straight clone of 3.5e to maintain its business model. The actual value of a straight clone if the industry hadn't largely been lured into the d20/OGL trap beforehand would be dubious at best.
*** ETA: to clarify, there's a huge difference between releasing 5e compatible 3rd party material during 5e's actual life cycle and producing a straight clone of 5e to continue such 3rd party material after 5e has been retired for 6e.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 04, 2021, 12:50:26 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 04, 2021, 10:34:49 AM
To Tenbones & Steven Michel, Re scaling levels down:
I have no problem with this, my favourite OSR IS WBFMAG and it only goes up to 10 levels.
As for remaking the classes, maybe we need a class builder? Something like White Lies published for free adapted to the game?
If you haven't read it you might find it interesting, it weighs everything and has tables to check the XP cost, so you can build a class rather quickly and the math is all there for future GM's to use in the making of their own Monk if needed.
It would also help in balancing the Classes.
Just an observation; this is rapidly crossing over into the "not a clone, at best a spiritual successor" territory just like my 4E-based project started out as before principles of good design demanded changes (including many of the same observations of where the problem points lie; my system started out capping at 15* vs. the 30 levels 4E had for precisely the same observed reason).
This goes to my original point; there's not enough both unique and mechanically solid enough to make 5e (like 4E before it) worth doing a straight clone of***. at best all these efforts turn into rummaging through 4E/5e's pockets for anything worth stealing and applying those to a system built with a much better foundation.**
* While 15 is technically max level for the system, the assumption I wrote the system with is that most campaigns will peak at about level 11 and finish somewhere between that and max level without necessarily reaching it.
The actual default assumptions laid out in the GM material is you'll level up after a number of challenging adventures equal to your level so you'll reach level 2 after your first adventure, level 6 after about 15 adventures, and level 11 after 55 adventures (a bit over a year of weekly sessions), with level 15 taking about 120 adventures (two and a third years of weekly sessions).
The GM can tweak that obviously, but the general idea is that levels 3-11 are basically the game's sweet spot with levels 1-2 being about a three session warm up and 12+ being for hardcore players who want to squeeze every bit of play out of those particular characters they can.
** Even the mostly straight clone of 3.5e that was Pathfinder was mostly a result of WotC cutting off Paizo's main revenue stream and Paizo needing basically a straight clone of 3.5e to maintain its business model. The actual value of a straight clone if the industry hadn't largely been lured into the d20/OGL trap beforehand would be dubious at best.
*** ETA: to clarify, there's a huge difference between releasing 5e compatible 3rd party material during 5e's actual life cycle and producing a straight clone of 5e to continue such 3rd party material after 5e has been retired for 6e.
As long as you can run existing material with little to no work from the GM...