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.

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.