I couldn't decide which thread to put this in, since the topic is currently scattered across several, so I'm just making it separate.
A simple enough point: The only way you get a humancentric game is if the rules enforce it. In almost every gaming group, there's going to be at least one (usually more IME) person who wants to play the most outlandish character they possibly can, and will not be dissuaded by anything short of being directly told they cannot. Even average players usually look at fantasy races and think "that's a human with more stuff, so why not?". If there are animal races in a game, someone will play them. If demi-humans are mechanically equal or better than humans, you will probably get a majority demihuman party. If you don't want a high percentage of non-humans, you have to give players a reason to play human. Either ban the races you don't want, or play a human-only or race-as-class game.
I'm running Dolmenwood right now. The party composition has varied throughout the campaign, but I don't think it's ever gone above 60% human. It's an OSR game, and I mostly get veteran players, but I knew going in that this was going to be the case. Dolmenwood has unique races, so obviously players will want to try them, and I chose not to go with the race-as-class rules for it.
Running 3e/4e/5e/Pathfinder or any similar game and then complaining about having a rainbow kids club party is like standing in the rain and complaining that you got wet.
An idea that I had was to revise demihuman PC races to look mostly human aside from minor exotic features. E.g. tieflings have small horns, a tail and hoofed toes, but otherwise pass for human; dragonbloods look like humans aside from a few patches of scales here and there; etc. Treat them as human subraces rather than their own.
muh humans have to be everywhere reee
like why not have them be the only race if you want the setting to be human centric then? GOD forbid humans are the under dog
I mostly play humans and think that when 5E gives them stat bonuses and/or an extra feat that gives a mechanical reason to play them. Most of my players end up playing non-humans as "humans with extras" anyway.
It's like the original Star Trek, where Spock was so interesting and part of the reason is that he was half-alien and on our side. He was so unique. Now, Star Trek Discovery (technically set years before the original Trek) has multiple aliens in the ship and usually on the bridge. Seeing non-humans isn't interesting in that setting.
Quote from: finarvyn on July 12, 2024, 08:46:30 AMI mostly play humans and think that when 5E gives them stat bonuses and/or an extra feat that gives a mechanical reason to play them. Most of my players end up playing non-humans as "humans with extras" anyway.
I also usually play humans in standard fantasy, but it's largely for sentimental reasons. I like a "working class hero" character, and along with halflings, humans are the best at that.
Mechanically, I think a lot of games make a mistake in giving humans very dry/numerical features, bonus feats, stat/xp boosts and the like. Those aren't all that compelling compared to the more flavorful and/or convenient features that other races get.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 07:55:29 AMAn idea that I had was to revise demihuman PC races to look mostly human aside from minor exotic features. E.g. tieflings have small horns, a tail and hoofed toes, but otherwise pass for human; dragonbloods look like humans aside from a few patches of scales here and there; etc. Treat them as human subraces rather than their own.
This is much like how Star Trek did most of their aliens.
I think part of the appeal of fantasy RPGs is both encountering and playing non-human races. But if the DM and the players want to focus on just humans, sure, that's ok. I really don't see either human-centric or non-human-centric as a problem either way--so so long as the participants enjoy it.
The problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
This is one of the resons I am enjoying reading the Tales of Argosa playtest. Humans are featured but you can play elves dwarves, halflings, or half-skorn if you want. Most hon-human races have a few perks but also a couple of disadvantages to counter balance it. Best of all, NO race has any kind of darkvision or night vision. The special perks are nowhere near as good as in most systems and humans are the only race to get an ability score bump. If you play a non-human it will because you like the flavor, not just to load up on cool stuff.
Quote from: DUCATISLO on July 12, 2024, 08:17:19 AMmuh humans have to be everywhere reee
like why not have them be the only race if you want the setting to be human centric then? GOD forbid humans are the under dog
Furry Detected
Quote from: Osman Gazi on July 12, 2024, 02:14:20 PMI think part of the appeal of fantasy RPGs is both encountering and playing non-human races. But if the DM and the players want to focus on just humans, sure, that's ok. I really don't see either human-centric or non-human-centric as a problem either way--so so long as the participants enjoy it.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
I'd agree with Osman Gazi here.
There are a lot of settings like historical games where both the PCs and their enemies are humans - similar for Call of Cthulhu where cultists are often a problem. Or there's settings like Star Wars where there are a lot of different races, but there are humans as well as many other species on both sides of the conflict. Or there are settings like Dark Crystal where there are no humans at all, just various nonhuman beings.
I think this is a feature rather than a problem. Even in my D&D games, if PCs instantly rushed in to attack a gold dragon because "kill all monsters", then they got into trouble. I've also regularly had bandits, cultists, and other non-monstrous enemies.
My problem is that the demihuman and nonhuman player races aren't mechanically distinct enough from base humans. There is no option in the Player's Handbook for Tieflings to use their horns to attack, for example. It's often more like a skin than a seperate species.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
Agreed, and RPGs are going down that slippery slope already. Players want to play character types which are typically monsters, so then rulebooks start creating rules for PC monsters, then somebody decides that not all of those monsters are bad, then folks feel bad about fictitious creatures feeling bad about other creatures being better than they are, then we wind up trying to be PC about creatures that don't even exist.
I blame Drizzt, as he's the first one I can remember that did this. Drow were clearly evil, then Drizzt became a misunderstood drow, then everyone wanted to be a misunderstood drow, then they had to re-do the Ranger class because players wanted to do all of the things the Drizzt did that broke the rules. Spirals out of control. We can't have one outlier any more but instead have to change the rules so that everyone can be that character type. Ugh.
Non-humans are just humans wearing a Halloween mask. There's basically no difference save for a couple of mechanical ones.
Quote from: finarvyn on July 12, 2024, 05:20:37 PMAgreed, and RPGs are going down that slippery slope already. Players want to play character types which are typically monsters, so then rulebooks start creating rules for PC monsters, then somebody decides that not all of those monsters are bad, then folks feel bad about fictitious creatures feeling bad about other creatures being better than they are, then we wind up trying to be PC about creatures that don't even exist.
I blame Drizzt, as he's the first one I can remember that did this.
Drow as a player character race were introduced by Gygax in 1985 with Unearthed Arcana, before the first Drizzt story came out. But monster PCs go back much earlier. The
Monsters! Monsters! (https://monstersmonsters.org/) RPG (by Ken St. Andre) was first published in 1976. Even earlier, I was just reading Gygax writing in the April 1975 Europa magazine:
Quote from: Gary GygaxWhat do you do if a player opts to become a Golden Dragon? Agree, of course. Allow the player to adventure only with strictly Lawful players, and normal men-at-arms would never go near even a good dragon. He would be Very Young, size being determined by a die roll. Advancement in ability would be a function of game time (the dragon would normally take about four years to grow to its next level) and accumulated treasure - let us say that for every 100 000 pieces of gold (or its equivalent) the dragon in effect gains an extra year of growth, counting magical items which go into the horde as fairly high in gold value. While the player will be quite advanced at first, those who are playing more usual roles will surpass him rather quickly, and in this was you'll not find a G.D. dominating.
Going outside RPGs, I remember reading John Gardner's novel
Grendel as a teen in the early 1980s, which is a retelling of Beowulf from the point of view of the monster Grendel. It was first published in 1971.
I think it's to be expected that different options for PCs would quickly be explored. Role-players are constantly inventing new stuff.
Greetings!
Yeah, monster races for Player Characters goes way back. Blah blah blah.
The player culture has changed though, dramatically. That's the problem. Before, Player Monsters were a once-every-so-often thing.
Now, fucking weird monster races make up three quarters or more of every party, *and* such players play them as absolutely Woke fucking special snowflakes with autism and depravity dialed up to 12.
Do you see the difference? That's the difference. That's why so many old school players and DM's in recent years have become increasingly annoyed by this kind of dynamic.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Exploderwizard on July 12, 2024, 02:48:41 PMBest of all, NO race has any kind of darkvision or night vision.
Complaining about darkvision has become a bit of a cliche, but it really is a big culprit in this. It's just too damn useful, and being the only person in the party who doesn't have it is a huge pain in the ass. I wouldn't mind "everyone has darkvision", if
everyone actually had it. Running dungeons for a party that's 70% darkvision becomes a hassle.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
That part doesn't bother me so much. With so many classic monsters already having many interpretations, I expect to have my players ask me "Wait, are trolls evil in this setting?". I kind of prefer the ambiguity of letting people decide whether they want to give up a surprise attack and chance diplomacy for the possibility of not having to fight at all.
For me it's more just the "when everyone's super, no one is" trope and the fact that when everyone is everywhere all at once it tends to turn settings into grey goo.
Quote from: jhkim on July 12, 2024, 06:14:54 PMI think it's to be expected that different options for PCs would quickly be explored. Role-players are constantly inventing new stuff.
Yeah. I mentioned this in the other thread, but the BECMI line eventually put in options for playing all kinds of wacky creatures. Tall Tales of the Wee Folk alone had 13 player races. If you put a creature in the setting, someone's going to want to play it.
While I don't see why you couldn't do a humans-only fantasy setting, I think there's something of an assumption that a D&D game will have some non-humans around.
I had a group several years back that wound up entirely non-human, which to me was too far. Shortly after that game I had my revelation regarding races -- I had too many -- and cut it down to just humans and less than a dozen others.
To help incentivize folks playing humans, I then gave them -- on top of their normal "+1 anywhere" stat mods -- an additional +2 to their class-based stat (as an example: all of my "tank" classes have a an additional stat called Tenacity, which reduces damage taken). Because I decided that everyone's class stat starts at 10 at character creation, this gives human characters a bit of a boost that makes them attractive when put alongside non-human races that have a bunch of other bells and whistles.
The result since then has been parties that are about half-and-half human and non-human, which was the goal.
Quote from: DUCATISLO on July 12, 2024, 08:17:19 AMmuh humans have to be everywhere reee
like why not have them be the only race if you want the setting to be human centric then? GOD forbid humans are the under dog
AD&D Conan, the 2e & 3e Masque of the Red Death and 90% of the 3e d20 Modern Polyhedeon settings were human only. Think the 3e Dark*Matter setting was too.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 12, 2024, 06:40:55 PMYeah. I mentioned this in the other thread, but the BECMI line eventually put in options for playing all kinds of wacky creatures. Tall Tales of the Wee Folk alone had 13 player races. If you put a creature in the setting, someone's going to want to play it.
I think one of the differences is that in pre-3E, those were often siloed into their own subgames, settings, or corners of settings. A lot of the anthropomorphic BECMI races that were mentioned, for example, were pretty focused on the revised Savage Coast from "The Voyages of the
Princess Ark" and the later Red Steel subsetting. And how many people know that the RAVENLOFT line included rules for undead PCs in one of TSR's last releases?
Since then, though, WotC has focused more on "D&D for D&D's sake," "everything is core," "One Game to Rule Them All and in Seattle bind them," :D, which has both diversified and homogenized PC options.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 07:55:29 AMAn idea that I had was to revise demihuman PC races to look mostly human aside from minor exotic features. E.g. tieflings have small horns, a tail and hoofed toes, but otherwise pass for human; dragonbloods look like humans aside from a few patches of scales here and there; etc. Treat them as human subraces rather than their own.
Personally I think going back to O and BX D&D would help. Neither granted stat bonuses for playing non-humans. And the racial bonuses were not huge.
Personally, the closest I get to a non-human PC is the occasional (less than 25% of my PCs) half-elf or perhaps a dhampir; basically at least one foot in the door of being human just with a bit of a foot in whatever is supernatural in the setting.
That said I don't begrudge others playing what they want unless its going to be specifically disruptive in a non-fun way for others.
There's also nothing wrong with an entirely non-human campaign. One I played in where I picked half-elf was because there were literally no pure-blood races left in the setting. All the humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs were extinct due to a magical plague and half-elves, half-orcs, and half-dwarves were the only playable races available (gnomes and halflings were also extinct, but there were no half-race versions of them to survive).
Which goes to highlight that you can do interesting things with a non-human setting, but its ideally something you'd build into the setting as opposed to "the world is mostly humans... except for the PCs who are some mishmash of extremely rare races just because."
Technically, I think even the latter could work if the GM built for it. Say the party is literally a bunch of escapees from some menagerie of the bizarre and their adventuring in a dungeon is more about clearing out a safe and secure place for them to live away from the humans than the typical party motivation of wealth and power.
Quote from: Crazy_Blue_Haired_Chick on July 12, 2024, 04:29:22 PMMy problem is that the demihuman and nonhuman player races aren't mechanically distinct enough from base humans. There is no option in the Player's Handbook for Tieflings to use their horns to attack, for example. It's often more like a skin than a seperate species.
But that falls into the old Gamma World problem. People wanted to play mutant animals thinking they could game the system. Then bitched when they found out playing a mutant octopus did not in fact give you 8 attacks around.
Quote from: finarvyn on July 12, 2024, 05:20:37 PMAgreed, and RPGs are going down that slippery slope already. Players want to play character types which are typically monsters, so then rulebooks start creating rules for PC monsters, then somebody decides that not all of those monsters are bad, then folks feel bad about fictitious creatures feeling bad about other creatures being better than they are, then we wind up trying to be PC about creatures that don't even exist.
I blame Drizzt, as he's the first one I can remember that did this.
Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha allowed playing effectively monsters long long ago.
The first D&D novel Quag Keep had amongst the PCs a Lizardman, A Wear-boar, and a Pseudo-Dragon. Beating out Drizzt by a decade probably.
BX had an article with rules for making your own class/race.
3e seems to be where things took off though for playing monsters.
Quote from: jhkim on July 12, 2024, 06:14:54 PMDrow as a player character race were introduced by Gygax in 1985 with Unearthed Arcana, before the first Drizzt story came out. But monster PCs go back much earlier. The Monsters! Monsters! (https://monstersmonsters.org/) RPG (by Ken St. Andre) was first published in 1976. Even earlier, I was just reading Gygax writing in the April 1975 Europa magazine:
Lets not forget that before the game was published players were playing monsters. Monard mentions playing a Balrog and someone else was playing a vampire and so on.
Playing monsters in D&D and RPGs is not this NEW THING!!! that people keep making it out to be.
Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2024, 06:25:25 PMThe player culture has changed though, dramatically. That's the problem. Before, Player Monsters were a once-every-so-often thing.
Not as every so often as people would like to believe.
Quote from: DUCATISLO on July 12, 2024, 03:33:45 PMold fart detected
Ohh Ohh scathing, I'm gonna need some aloe for that witty retort of a burn.
Humor aside what compels you to project your fetish onto demihumans? what is so great about demihumans, the best they can ever be is human archetypes so why not cut out the middle man?
Unless the goal is to play something genuinely alien? except no that can't be it because you never do, you just play extra quirky or spicy humans more or less.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 12, 2024, 06:40:55 PMComplaining about darkvision has become a bit of a cliche, but it really is a big culprit in this. It's just too damn useful, and being the only person in the party who doesn't have it is a huge pain in the ass. I wouldn't mind "everyone has darkvision", if everyone actually had it. Running dungeons for a party that's 70% darkvision becomes a hassle.
They should have stuck to infravision which was totally nullified by torches and other lighting.
Quote from: GnomeWorks on July 12, 2024, 06:57:18 PMWhile I don't see why you couldn't do a humans-only fantasy setting, I think there's something of an assumption that a D&D game will have some non-humans around.
Good question.
I think over time the assumption has more been this push that "you can be anything" and the DM has to accept it. And then the shicking disllusionment when the DM says No.
Theres numerous reports of players using this to be disruptive or powergame. They want X race because they want to try and either break the game, or piss off the DM or players. None of which would happen if the DM vetoed it.
The average player is fine with restrictions long as the DM is up front about it and pitches something interesting.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 12, 2024, 07:30:27 AMEven average players usually look at fantasy races and think "that's a human with more stuff, so why not?". If there are animal races in a game, someone will play them. If demi-humans are mechanically equal or better than humans, you will probably get a majority demihuman party. If you don't want a high percentage of non-humans, you have to give players a reason to play human. Either ban the races you don't want, or play a human-only or race-as-class game.
^THIS^
ForgottenF gets it.
Fantasy settings do not actually need as many fantastical races as people seem to think. You can see this in the 5e data from D&D beyond and the large player base of Baulders gate 3.
Data released by the Baulders gate 3 people, and D&D beyond show that The human fighter is the reigning and defending champion of all times. For races it's Humans, then Elves/Half-Elves, then Dragonborne, then Tieflings, then dwarves, and everything beyond that as a kinda grab-bag.
Worth noting that once their strength bonus was disappeared, virtually no one plays a Half-Orc anymore. That group has shifted to the Dragonborn that can literally breathe fire...
IMO: If you took away the racial ability of the dragonborn to breathe fire, that race would fall by the wayside right quick.
Tieflings are just politically correct Drow.
It is not controversial to state that for a fantasy setting, you only really need 2-3 "non-human" races in your setting. And the
overwhelming majority of the player base will be satisfied with the options.
While there were always those that pushed for essentially unlimited choices for PC races, it's now pretty obvious that they have always just been a loud, but tiny minority.
Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2024, 06:25:25 PMThe player culture has changed though, dramatically. That's the problem. Before, Player Monsters were a once-every-so-often thing.
I would say that as Wotc has increasingly catered to the online savvy woke fanbase, that has had downstream effects on general table play across the board.
D&D 'worldbuilding' has become increasingly self-referential, and nonsensical.
Quote from: Omega on July 12, 2024, 07:20:35 PMLets not forget that before the game was published players were playing monsters. Monard mentions playing a Balrog and someone else was playing a vampire and so on.
People always forget Gygax's follow up...
Based upon those early experiences, on p.21 in the AD&D DM's guide Gygax explained why allowing monsters as player characters
was not a very good idea!And he's still right some 40 years later.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
Excellent response!!!
Quote from: Omega on July 12, 2024, 07:23:10 PMQuote from: ForgottenF on July 12, 2024, 06:40:55 PMComplaining about darkvision has become a bit of a cliche, but it really is a big culprit in this. It's just too damn useful, and being the only person in the party who doesn't have it is a huge pain in the ass. I wouldn't mind "everyone has darkvision", if everyone actually had it. Running dungeons for a party that's 70% darkvision becomes a hassle.
They should have stuck to infravision which was totally nullified by torches and other lighting.
That's certainly better; at least it's only one kind of vision to track at a time. But I'd rather have kept it down to elves, dwarves and orcs having "low-light vision", and keep true dark vision down to a small number of specialized underground monsters.
Quote from: Omega on July 12, 2024, 07:34:59 PMI think over time the assumption has more been this push that "you can be anything" and the DM has to accept it. And then the shicking disllusionment when the DM says No.
That seems to be a 5e (and maybe 4e) development, and I think it was a product of them pretending all player races were mechanically equal. 3.x had tons of templates for monstrous PCs, but my memory of it is that everyone understood they could easily unbalance the game, so there wasn't an expectation that DMs had to allow them.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 12, 2024, 09:30:34 AMQuote from: finarvyn on July 12, 2024, 08:46:30 AMI mostly play humans and think that when 5E gives them stat bonuses and/or an extra feat that gives a mechanical reason to play them. Most of my players end up playing non-humans as "humans with extras" anyway.
I also usually play humans in standard fantasy, but it's largely for sentimental reasons. I like a "working class hero" character, and along with halflings, humans are the best at that.
Mechanically, I think a lot of games make a mistake in giving humans very dry/numerical features, bonus feats, stat/xp boosts and the like. Those aren't all that compelling compared to the more flavorful and/or convenient features that other races get.
I think the bigger issue is not giving the other races more negatives--negatives with some bite. Now, I don't mind a group of mostly non-humans or even all non-humans. Especially with players new to a system, because they naturally want to try things. So far, I'm getting the results I want with my races, despite humans only getting a few dry bonuses. Though it helps a lot when certain bonuses are hard to come by, like my resist bonuses. I also try to make the races that are "most like humans" have the least drawbacks.
- Humans get a general purpose resistance bonus and an extra stat bonus--and no limitations.
- Dwarves are just short, exceptionally tough humans who can't use large weapons at all.
- My wolf men hybrids are a lot like humans, except they have bonuses to perception and morale.
- My cat people are 3 foot tall, very quick, and the system hits hard on their lack of stature.
- Some minor shape changers that are mostly human with few bonuses and a bit of niche flavorful bonuses.
- Elves effectively can't wear metal armor, or if they do they give up most of their other features.
That's pretty much the order that they become popular over time, too. New players jump on elves or the cats or the shape changers for novelty. Then the next character they gravitate towards the wolf or dwarf. Then they start to appreciate that human. After the first character, elf is by far the least popular--but in just enough to make the people who really want to play them feel like they stand out.
At no point did I steer anyone towards humans. I just made them a great choice for about half the concepts that people would typically play, and an OK choice for almost any concept.
Quote from: Jaeger on July 12, 2024, 07:42:31 PMQuoteEven average players usually look at fantasy races and think "that's a human with more stuff, so why not?". If there are animal races in a game, someone will play them. If demi-humans are mechanically equal or better than humans, you will probably get a majority demihuman party. If you don't want a high percentage of non-humans, you have to give players a reason to play human. Either ban the races you don't want, or play a human-only or race-as-class game.
^THIS^
ForgottenF gets it.
Fantasy settings do not actually need as many fantastical races as people seem to think. You can see this in the 5e data from D&D beyond and the large player base of Baulders gate 3.
Data released by the Baulders gate 3 people, and D&D beyond show that The human fighter is the reigning and defending champion of all times. For races it's Humans, then Elves/Half-Elves, then Dragonborne, then Tieflings, then dwarves, and everything beyond that as a kinda grab-bag.
Worth noting that once their strength bonus was disappeared, virtually no one plays a Half-Orc anymore. That group has shifted to the Dragonborn that can literally breathe fire...
IMO: If you took away the racial ability of the dragonborn to breathe fire, that race would fall by the wayside right quick.
Thank you.
I considered mentioning in the first post (but cut for brevity) that the player races you don't see as much of in modern D&D are the ones that still carry a significant downside to playing them. The ones I think of are half-orcs (with the downside of being ugly) and halflings (with the downside of having to use small weapons).
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 12, 2024, 08:37:14 PMI think the bigger issue is not giving the other races more negatives--negatives with some bite.
So yeah, this post popped up while I was typing out the reply to other one :P ...and it's entirely true. Players will always gravitate towards what they haven't done recently/before.
I think one of the reasons that you get the predominantly non-human parties is that DMs don't want to enforce a lot of the purely roleplay ramifications of having a monstrous appearance or non-standard body configuration. You can chalk some of that up to social pressure, but at the same time it's just a hassle to have to constantly stop the game to single out one of your players for extra inconvenience based on their race.
When I started up my Dolmenwood campaign, a couple of players asked me how the various fairy races were treated in the setting. The book wants to say that mortals are in awe of them, but that struck me as being 1. a hassle and potentially derailing of NPC interactions, 2. handing the fairy race players a lot of free power, and 3. implausible based on them being free player options. So my rule going forward is that if a race is an option at character creation, it's something most people are going to be familiar with. Maybe not common, but you're not going to hear a record-scratch whenever you walk into an inn.
Quote from: Jaeger on July 12, 2024, 07:42:31 PMIt is not controversial to state that for a fantasy setting, you only really need 2-3 "non-human" races in your setting. And the overwhelming majority of the player base will be satisfied with the options.
For my setting, I really do need the almost-dozen non-human races I have. Some get played more than others, sure, but there are good lore reasons for them to be at least around, which makes them valid PC options.
But yes, unless your setting really needs that many, you probably only need a few playable non-humans around.
Greetings!
Yeah, I like Humanocentric player groups. It really goes a long way to keeping the campaign grounded in a more medieval or ancient world feel. Or Dark Ages feel. In my world of Thandor, thematically, I have different regions of the world that each have their own "Thematic Flavour." I also have over two dozen humanoid races that are not human, and theoretically available as Player Characters. I don't however, have them all available anywhere and everywhere, simultaneously. Each region of the world has their own specialized Race Menu. Depending on what region of the world the layers are starting the game in, determines the particular Race Menu that they can select their Characters from.
In this way, I tend to limit Player Character choices to about 6 or so different races.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
My problem with this is that almost all the other races when played are actually just played as human with special abilities. No thought or consideration on the races' cultural/social difference compared to the "humanocentric" norm. Elves are human with pointy ears and dark vision. Dwarves are short humans with beards and dark vision etc etc etc
Making it worse is that those that want the above mentioned 'free show' mindset is the deconstruction of the roots of those distinct social/cultural differences. You want to play an elf or dwarf sure but it had better not be anything like the good old Tolkien elf or dwarf (well the elf and dwarf in his books, it is fine if it is like the new woke show versions of those that are nothing like the btb). Oh yeah and you can't have grown up in a distinctly elf dwarf orc etc etc etc dominated area where they are the primary race. It has to be from a place where EVERYONE is living at the same place shoulder to shoulder and living hugging ....
That, or they play it as an outlet for any and all antisocial antinormal actions and attitudes they can't act on in real life.
Additionally there is absolutely NO realistic view of physics and size etc. I remember hearing someone talking about their halfling paladin with an 18 strength talking about how in his game he was able to jump up and climb up on an ogre (or maybe hill giant) and then judo throw it .... I made the mistake of commenting that couldn't physically happen no matter how strong a 3 ft tall thing is trying to do that to a 9ft + sized thing. Of course that resulted in the normal 'you are just hateful raciest etc'
Personally I when I run (well ran since I'm running Traveller and Delta Green/CoC right now) I tend to more 'historical authentic' with humans being the vast majority with other races being the vastly outnumbered minority. Yes there is a pocket kingdom or 2 of elves and a few dwarf holds here and there and some fey like 'wild elves' in the deep dark woods. But mostly there are humans. That said a lot of the bad guys are human so be careful that group on the road ahead may be traveling merchants with guards, but they may also be a group of bandits.
Now even when playing that I still do have non human races, and yes some could be half breed 'monster' races. There are halforc half oblin and even halfogres. However, if you play one there are consequences.
That comes from back in the day when my DM let me play a half ogre from the ole Dragon Mag. It was great. I was a big strong and stupid tank (I normally played paladins or thieves or rangers). I used the old black and white movie Frankenstein's monster as my inspiration for role playing him. I could soak up a ton of damage and be a swath of destruction in a fight. However, when I went into town I was watched by EVERYONE and at times local bad guys used me being there as a cover to do their bad guy things and me get blamed for it just because I was an ogre. Outside a paladin or 2, one that died heroically holding a pass from monsters/demons while the rest of the party ran to warn and prepare the local town for the coming attack (and avoid a TPK) and a cavalier that was great in an Emperess Maud and King Stephen type setting, he is one of my most fondly remembered PCs.
Quote from: Lurker on July 12, 2024, 09:31:07 PMAdditionally there is absolutely NO realistic view of physics and size etc. I remember hearing someone talking about their halfling paladin with an 18 strength talking about how in his game he was able to jump up and climb up on an ogre (or maybe hill giant) and then judo throw it .... I made the mistake of commenting that couldn't physically happen no matter how strong a 3 ft tall thing is trying to do that to a 9ft + sized thing. Of course that resulted in the normal 'you are just hateful raciest etc'
One of the reason I have only six races is that I absolutely was not going to include a race that had mechanics not meaningful in the system. And the system wasn't going to change to accommodate races. This was specifically to address ForgottenF's point about purely role play limitations. As in, I didn't want any race with that--because it does tend to get watered down--but also because I wanted the mechanical limitations to always be there no matter how much the GM moved the social side. (And my social side, role play, is more limited by culture than race anyway, but I digress.)
However, there's a huge swath of often excluded middle between realistic size penalties on one hand and completely "handwavium for player fun" on the other. Strength and size penalties don't necessarily need to be all the way to "realistic" to affect player actions. And physical strength is as much about muscle movement and speed as it is raw power for many common game functions (such as hitting something in early D&D). It does help me a lot that I collapse Strength and Constitution into "Might", which means the stronger characters are tougher.
So take my 3 foot tall cat character. No Might bonuses, but might get lucky on the rolls. A cat with a high Might gets the bonus to hit and damage--albeit with a very limited weapon selection. But they have no leverage, hefty encumbrance penalty (in a system where it matters), and most importantly, are incapable of dragging one of the other races off. Had a cat almost die a few weeks ago because 3 out of 8 party members went down, they decided to retreat, and that the cat and one other character to hold off the foes while their conscious friends hauled off their unconscious allies.
I designed the system so that being a small character was feasible but with real drawbacks. That gave me a window to design that cat race. I had a bunch of other ideas that would fit in the world, but had no particularly mechanical hooks. So those didn't make the cut.
My view has always been, if we're playing make believe, why not let people, within reason, play an elf or dwarf or even the more quirky races that have become popular. I guess the line people draw is what's reasonable.
Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2024, 06:25:25 PMThe player culture has changed though, dramatically. That's the problem. Before, Player Monsters were a once-every-so-often thing.
Now, fucking weird monster races make up three quarters or more of every party, *and* such players play them as absolutely Woke fucking special snowflakes with autism and depravity dialed up to 12.
Do you see the difference? That's the difference. That's why so many old school players and DM's in recent years have become increasingly annoyed by this kind of dynamic.
I can that as a difference, but I see it as a bit of aesthetics that I don't particularly care about.
I played in 75% or even 100% non-human D&D parties even back in the old-school days, but sure, I'll believe that they're more common now. I suspect the main thing that kept them less common were the race limits and restrictions on classes. When I played a short summer campaign after my freshman year, I think we had an all-non-human / all-infravision party. Those limits were tossed in 3rd ed.
But I've enjoyed having a variety of races.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 12, 2024, 11:23:19 PMMy view has always been, if we're playing make believe, why not let people, within reason, play an elf or dwarf or even the more quirky races that have become popular. I guess the line people draw is what's reasonable.
I draw different lines with each campaign. Some campaigns have been human-only, some many different races. Even just within D&D, I'll vary based on my setting. My D&D campaign before last, humans and demi-humans were NPC-only and I only had other races - because in that setting, humans were evil. My last campaign had standard races (plus one or two more) but with a non-standard culture, and I had a party that was mostly a Tolkien-ish mix.
As I see it, it's frickin fantasy. There can be as many or as few humans as one wants. It's reasonable to have only humans, and it's also reasonable to have all sorts of creatures and have humans be the rare exception if they exist at all.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 12, 2024, 11:23:19 PMMy view has always been, if we're playing make believe, why not let people, within reason, play an elf or dwarf or even the more quirky races that have become popular. I guess the line people draw is what's reasonable.
I've got room in my heart for both, though the kitchen sink approach makes more sense to me for soft sci fi than it does for fantasy. Some day I'll get to run the Heavy Metal 2000 wacky space fantasy point-crawl I've always dreamed of, and then I'll allow people to play whatever outlandish creature they can think of.
About Darkvision, people will always play fast and loose with the rules. Darkvision sounds restriction-free, hence why it is seen as objectively better. But in reality it is specific:
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of yourself as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
[/i]
Dim light has a tight radius, everything beyond that requires a Dim Light active Perception roll, killing an action, to make anything out in vague broad strokes. Treating it like illusions requiring active Investigation rolls helps complicate the process.. I knew when GMs actually played that up in actual play players quickly found the usefulness of providing light for everyone. People stopped asking "Oh, I read that in the dark, darkvision," "I grab the correct (e.g. 'red') key and run, darkvision" and started to realize its limits. Bee sure to add the -5 penalty to Passive Perception, and unless the PC actively gets involved that's all you feed back.
But that requires playing the rules and reminding the players how things really work. Most of the time people are swayed by titles and subject lines. This is an old problem we've known for generations. Being isolated from your allies is always a risk, so being without light is useful for *some* reconnaissance but can also put you in grave danger. And torches are soooo cheap, a copper a piece, so there's little reason to play uncooperatively keeping your allies in the dark.
People skim and scan, which is close to "skip and scam," because what you allow is what will continue. ;)
Quote from: DUCATISLO on July 12, 2024, 08:17:19 AMmuh humans have to be everywhere reee
like why not have them be the only race if you want the setting to be human centric then? GOD forbid humans are the under dog
furry pfp detected, opinion rejected
Quote from: Opaopajr on July 13, 2024, 12:41:43 AMAbout Darkvision, people will always play fast and loose with the rules. Darkvision sounds restriction-free, hence why it is seen as objectively better. But in reality it is specific:
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of yourself as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
[/i]
Dim light has a tight radius, everything beyond that requires a Dim Light active Perception roll, killing an action, to make anything out in vague broad strokes. Treating it like illusions requiring active Investigation rolls helps complicate the process.. I knew when GMs actually played that up in actual play players quickly found the usefulness of providing light for everyone. People stopped asking "Oh, I read that in the dark, darkvision," "I grab the correct (e.g. 'red') key and run, darkvision" and started to realize its limits. Bee sure to add the -5 penalty to Passive Perception, and unless the PC actively gets involved that's all you feed back.
But that requires playing the rules and reminding the players how things really work. Most of the time people are swayed by titles and subject lines. This is an old problem we've known for generations. Being isolated from your allies is always a risk, so being without light is useful for *some* reconnaissance but can also put you in grave danger. And torches are soooo cheap, a copper a piece, so there's little reason to play uncooperatively keeping your allies in the dark.
People skim and scan, which is close to "skip and scam," because what you allow is what will continue. ;)
Darkvision is only one issue with D&D vision and light problems. Torches and lanterns and other forms of fire based light are only a factor for a couple of levels anyway. Once a caster hits 3rd level there is Continual Light, and with a little downtime the whole party is outfitted with heatless flashlights and lots of extra lights stored in a blag back that can be thrown around lighting up wherever they want.
Quote from: MeganovaStella on July 13, 2024, 04:17:03 AMfurry pfp detected, opinion rejected
coming from a weeb but in 3D lol
Quote from: Opaopajr on July 13, 2024, 12:41:43 AMAbout Darkvision, people will always play fast and loose with the rules. Darkvision sounds restriction-free, hence why it is seen as objectively better. But in reality it is specific:
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of yourself as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
Dim light has a tight radius, everything beyond that requires a Dim Light active Perception roll, killing an action, to make anything out in vague broad strokes. Treating it like illusions requiring active Investigation rolls helps complicate the process.. I knew when GMs actually played that up in actual play players quickly found the usefulness of providing light for everyone. People stopped asking "Oh, I read that in the dark, darkvision," "I grab the correct (e.g. 'red') key and run, darkvision" and started to realize its limits. Bee sure to add the -5 penalty to Passive Perception, and unless the PC actively gets involved that's all you feed back.
But that requires playing the rules and reminding the players how things really work. Most of the time people are swayed by titles and subject lines. This is an old problem we've known for generations. Being isolated from your allies is always a risk, so being without light is useful for *some* reconnaissance but can also put you in grave danger. And torches are soooo cheap, a copper a piece, so there's little reason to play uncooperatively keeping your allies in the dark.
People skim and scan, which is close to "skip and scam," because what you allow is what will continue. ;)
I don't disagree with any of this, but I don't think it fully addresses the issue. I had two issues with Darkvision:
The issue for the purpose of this topic is that it's useful to the point where it can be perceived as a "no brainer" when choosing a character race. I don't think enforcing restrictions on color vision or fine detail is really enough to counteract that. IME the reason everyone wants darkvision is that it's a backstop. You can carry a light source, but you know you're going to be ok without one. It moves light from something you always need to deal with to something you use for particular problems. I don't run/play 5e, so I don't know the action economy/rules details, but a broad Perception penalty sounds like a good a good idea. More generally though, I think the only restriction that would make a real difference when it comes to player race choice would be if darkvision imposed combat penalties.
My other issue with it is that it's a pain for the DM to account for and adjudicate. Basically I find it annoying to have to tell half my players they see one thing and the other half something else, not to mention that the non-darkvision players are still hearing the description I give to my darkvision players (or seeing the revealed map on Roll20). If anything the finer details of how darkvision works compound that rather than simplify it.
If you're gonna run a freakshow setting like Gamma Terra or Fairyland or a fantasy miniatures game, then you really need to set out the logic of your setting beforehand to account for that.
With cosmopolitan settings like Star Wars and Star Trek, the approach is to use diplomacy first. If the aliens attack, then you can put them on the blacklist.
These settings run on very different logic from D&D's original "go through the dungeon cell by cell, kill everyone who looks ugly/evil, and steal everything that isn't nailed down."
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a
desireable state of play?
Quote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
I'd say it was definitely the way us Junior-and-Senior-High kids played it in the late 70s/early 80s. All Orcs & Goblins evil, kill 'em all.
Was that desirable? Don't know. It was fun. But as I age, I tend to think having all members of a sapient race as "evil" or "good" simplistic. It can be fun, sure ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), but depending on how believable (in the context of a game with magic, dragons, and other supernatural creatures) you want the game to be, it may not be the best.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2024, 10:27:58 AMIf you're gonna run a freakshow setting like Gamma Terra or Fairyland or a fantasy miniatures game, then you really need to set out the logic of your setting beforehand to account for that.
With cosmopolitan settings like Star Wars and Star Trek, the approach is to use diplomacy first. If the aliens attack, then you can put them on the blacklist.
These settings run on very different logic from D&D's original "go through the dungeon cell by cell, kill everyone who looks ugly/evil, and steal everything that isn't nailed down."
Precisely. It all depends on the flavor of the gaming world you want to have.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 13, 2024, 09:51:33 AMQuote from: Opaopajr on July 13, 2024, 12:41:43 AMAbout Darkvision, people will always play fast and loose with the rules. Darkvision sounds restriction-free, hence why it is seen as objectively better. But in reality it is specific:
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of yourself as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
Dim light has a tight radius, everything beyond that requires a Dim Light active Perception roll, killing an action, to make anything out in vague broad strokes. Treating it like illusions requiring active Investigation rolls helps complicate the process.. I knew when GMs actually played that up in actual play players quickly found the usefulness of providing light for everyone. People stopped asking "Oh, I read that in the dark, darkvision," "I grab the correct (e.g. 'red') key and run, darkvision" and started to realize its limits. Bee sure to add the -5 penalty to Passive Perception, and unless the PC actively gets involved that's all you feed back.
But that requires playing the rules and reminding the players how things really work. Most of the time people are swayed by titles and subject lines. This is an old problem we've known for generations. Being isolated from your allies is always a risk, so being without light is useful for *some* reconnaissance but can also put you in grave danger. And torches are soooo cheap, a copper a piece, so there's little reason to play uncooperatively keeping your allies in the dark.
People skim and scan, which is close to "skip and scam," because what you allow is what will continue. ;)
I don't disagree with any of this, but I don't think it fully addresses the issue. I had two issues with Darkvision:
The issue for the purpose of this topic is that it's useful to the point where it can be perceived as a "no brainer" when choosing a character race. I don't think enforcing restrictions on color vision or fine detail is really enough to counteract that. IME the reason everyone wants darkvision is that it's a backstop. You can carry a light source, but you know you're going to be ok without one. It moves light from something you always need to deal with to something you use for particular problems. I don't run/play 5e, so I don't know the action economy/rules details, but a broad Perception penalty sounds like a good a good idea. More generally though, I think the only restriction that would make a real difference when it comes to player race choice would be if darkvision imposed combat penalties.
My other issue with it is that it's a pain for the DM to account for and adjudicate. Basically I find it annoying to have to tell half my players they see one thing and the other half something else, not to mention that the non-darkvision players are still hearing the description I give to my darkvision players (or seeing the revealed map on Roll20). If anything the finer details of how darkvision works compound that rather than simplify it.
I'd say this is an inherent problem in trying "balance" things to discourage min-maxing. And if someone just likes the aesthetic of a race ("elves are pretty" or "dwarves are based"), then those perks are probably not going to make a difference.
Although it's not perfect, point-buy systems (like, say, GURPS--don't take this as an endorsement of SJ Games) at least try to theoretically "balance" those perks. "Get infravision? Ok, then you need to take a disadvantage to offset it." And 1st Ed AD&D tried to "balance" it with things like limiting advancement.
With 5e and especially after Tasha's, it's 100% aesthetic, where all races can choose their bonuses. There are some definite downsides of that, but I do see it as an attempt to get to a "everyone starts out the same" kind of game, at least in approximate terms. But if that's not what your looking for in a game, skip it (or skip it even if it is what you like if you don't want to support WOTC's leadership...and I'd agree with that sentiment).
Quote from: Osman Gazi on July 13, 2024, 11:05:54 AMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
I'd say it was definitely the way us Junior-and-Senior-High kids played it in the late 70s/early 80s. All Orcs & Goblins evil, kill 'em all.
Was that desirable? Don't know. It was fun. But as I age, I tend to think having all members of a sapient race as "evil" or "good" simplistic. It can be fun, sure ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), but depending on how believable (in the context of a game with magic, dragons, and other supernatural creatures) you want the game to be, it may not be the best.
For my group, FASA broke that habit with Shadowrun and Earthdawn in late 80s/early 90s. Those games seemed far more interesting to us than D&D and, while we've played D&D since, we never played it the same way again.
Quote from: Omega on July 12, 2024, 07:16:12 PMThe first D&D novel Quag Keep had amongst the PCs a Lizardman...
Off topic, but I always wondered if there was a connection between Andre Alice Norton's Lizardman and Phoebus (Player: Jeff R. Leason) the Lizardman in the Rogues Gallery. I know Norton played in a game or two with Gary before writing the book.
Quote from: Ruprecht on July 13, 2024, 02:36:56 PMQuote from: Omega on July 12, 2024, 07:16:12 PMThe first D&D novel Quag Keep had amongst the PCs a Lizardman...
Off topic, but I always wondered if there was a connection between Andre Alice Norton's Lizardman and Phoebus (Player: Jeff R. Leason) the Lizardman in the Rogues Gallery. I know Norton played in a game or two with Gary before writing the book.
IIRC, Phoebus was a human fighter that was killed and reincarnated as a lizard man which is not quite the same as creating a character as a lizard man. They are very different things. Phoebus was very much a human trapped in a lizard man's body. As such, he would behave very differently than an actual lizard man.
Quote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 11:44:08 AMQuote from: Osman Gazi on July 13, 2024, 11:05:54 AMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
I'd say it was definitely the way us Junior-and-Senior-High kids played it in the late 70s/early 80s. All Orcs & Goblins evil, kill 'em all.
Was that desirable? Don't know. It was fun. But as I age, I tend to think having all members of a sapient race as "evil" or "good" simplistic. It can be fun, sure ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), but depending on how believable (in the context of a game with magic, dragons, and other supernatural creatures) you want the game to be, it may not be the best.
For my group, FASA broke that habit with Shadowrun and Earthdawn in late 80s/early 90s. Those games seemed far more interesting to us than D&D and, while we've played D&D since, we never played it the same way again.
Nowadays I find the concept of dungeon crawling, killing, looting, all for xp to be rather bizarre, but what else are you gonna do? As much as I'd love to play an X-Files inspired game, my only realistic option is Delta Green and that has Cthulhu mythos baggage that I'm not interested in.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2024, 04:57:05 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 11:44:08 AMQuote from: Osman Gazi on July 13, 2024, 11:05:54 AMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
I'd say it was definitely the way us Junior-and-Senior-High kids played it in the late 70s/early 80s. All Orcs & Goblins evil, kill 'em all.
Was that desirable? Don't know. It was fun. But as I age, I tend to think having all members of a sapient race as "evil" or "good" simplistic. It can be fun, sure ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), but depending on how believable (in the context of a game with magic, dragons, and other supernatural creatures) you want the game to be, it may not be the best.
For my group, FASA broke that habit with Shadowrun and Earthdawn in late 80s/early 90s. Those games seemed far more interesting to us than D&D and, while we've played D&D since, we never played it the same way again.
Nowadays I find the concept of dungeon crawling, killing, looting, all for xp to be rather bizarre, but what else are you gonna do? As much as I'd love to play an X-Files inspired game, my only realistic option is Delta Green and that has Cthulhu mythos baggage that I'm not interested in.
I play Delta Green/CoC with my girls, about 1 out of 4 adventures (the other 3 being Traveller). However, I pulled out the hard core Cthulhu parts and run it with a more X-File / Evil (the TV Show) / Dracula / Nefarious / Screwtape influences. The big evils are cultists of (insert ancient Biblical/Mesopotamian/Egyptian/other myth evil god) and not of the Cthulhu mythos. Demensional Shamblers are demons, etc. Even things that are Cthluhu are easy to morph into African or South American myth (Nearlothoep becomes a multi-cultural evil god of flies and etc). Well I am starting to use some King in Yellow flavor, but that doesn't count ;-)
I got rid of the 'unnatural skill' and added various religious / magical skills from medieval and later views of magic and miracles (and dark corrupting magical arts too) for the magic occult unnatural elements of the game. I even have an NPC (the group hasn't really gotten into using so far) that is a religious preacher skilled with miracles exorcism etc.
For the rules I LOVE CoC and DG. I mush them together (CoC Luck, Credit Rating, half & 5th skill etc, DG look on if you have a skill above X you get info no matter what - I do still have them roll a check to see how long it takes or if they get bonus info etc - projecting san loss onto bonds, character development between sessions) Plus the sanity rules for both are great.
So with that, I'd encourage you to pull the trigger on DG / CoC and run with it as X-Files etc and not keep it btb Cthluhu mind bending baggage.
Quote from: Opaopajr on July 13, 2024, 12:41:43 AMPeople skim and scan, which is close to "skip and scam," because what you allow is what will continue. ;)
Some of the ranges on darkvision in 5e are still fairly generous. But yeah alot of folk forget that its got a range.
Quote from: Ruprecht on July 13, 2024, 02:36:56 PMQuote from: Omega on July 12, 2024, 07:16:12 PMThe first D&D novel Quag Keep had amongst the PCs a Lizardman...
Off topic, but I always wondered if there was a connection between Andre Alice Norton's Lizardman and Phoebus (Player: Jeff R. Leason) the Lizardman in the Rogues Gallery. I know Norton played in a game or two with Gary before writing the book.
Theres been discussion. But we will likely never know now what the process was. Why a pseudo dragon and a wereboar?
Quote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
Right, because elfs, dwarfs, halflings look just like humans...
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2024, 04:57:05 PMNowadays I find the concept of dungeon crawling, killing, looting, all for xp to be rather bizarre, but what else are you gonna do?
There are a lot of games out there that don't push that model of play at all. D&D can even be played differently from that, but it's certainly not the ideal game to do it with unless you have nothing else.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2024, 11:58:13 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
Right, because elfs, dwarfs, halflings look just like humans...
Relatively speaking, they most certainly do.
Quote from: HappyDaze on July 14, 2024, 01:54:52 AMQuote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2024, 11:58:13 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
Right, because elfs, dwarfs, halflings look just like humans...
Relatively speaking, they most certainly do.
Can you be any more disingenuous?
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 14, 2024, 02:20:26 AMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 14, 2024, 01:54:52 AMQuote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2024, 11:58:13 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
Right, because elfs, dwarfs, halflings look just like humans...
Relatively speaking, they most certainly do.
Can you be any more disingenuous?
Please explain your question. There is nothing disingenuous in recognizing that elves/dwarves/halflings look much closer to humans than ogres/trolls/orcs/gnolls do, and that's without even mentioning that the game typically classified one as "demi-humans" while the other were classified as "humanoids" (the devision typically being just a shorthand for an "us" and "them" divisor).
Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 14, 2024, 02:20:26 AMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 14, 2024, 01:54:52 AMQuote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2024, 11:58:13 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
Right, because elfs, dwarfs, halflings look just like humans...
Relatively speaking, they most certainly do.
Can you be any more disingenuous?
Just ignore him. He has never contributed a single piece of useful commentary to this site. His posts are always contrarian or defending other woke garbage.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 14, 2024, 10:44:39 AMQuote from: GeekyBugle on July 14, 2024, 02:20:26 AMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 14, 2024, 01:54:52 AMQuote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2024, 11:58:13 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
Right, because elfs, dwarfs, halflings look just like humans...
Relatively speaking, they most certainly do.
Can you be any more disingenuous?
Just ignore him. He has never contributed a single piece of useful commentary to this site. His posts are always contrarian or defending other woke garbage.
I'm very much on topic here. You just can't help but attack posters when you can't offer anything better, can you?
Quote from: Lurker on July 13, 2024, 07:59:42 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2024, 04:57:05 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 11:44:08 AMQuote from: Osman Gazi on July 13, 2024, 11:05:54 AMQuote from: HappyDaze on July 13, 2024, 10:52:05 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
So, "Looks Different = OK to Kill It" is a desireable state of play?
I'd say it was definitely the way us Junior-and-Senior-High kids played it in the late 70s/early 80s. All Orcs & Goblins evil, kill 'em all.
Was that desirable? Don't know. It was fun. But as I age, I tend to think having all members of a sapient race as "evil" or "good" simplistic. It can be fun, sure ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), but depending on how believable (in the context of a game with magic, dragons, and other supernatural creatures) you want the game to be, it may not be the best.
For my group, FASA broke that habit with Shadowrun and Earthdawn in late 80s/early 90s. Those games seemed far more interesting to us than D&D and, while we've played D&D since, we never played it the same way again.
Nowadays I find the concept of dungeon crawling, killing, looting, all for xp to be rather bizarre, but what else are you gonna do? As much as I'd love to play an X-Files inspired game, my only realistic option is Delta Green and that has Cthulhu mythos baggage that I'm not interested in.
I play Delta Green/CoC with my girls, about 1 out of 4 adventures (the other 3 being Traveller). However, I pulled out the hard core Cthulhu parts and run it with a more X-File / Evil (the TV Show) / Dracula / Nefarious / Screwtape influences. The big evils are cultists of (insert ancient Biblical/Mesopotamian/Egyptian/other myth evil god) and not of the Cthulhu mythos. Demensional Shamblers are demons, etc. Even things that are Cthluhu are easy to morph into African or South American myth (Nearlothoep becomes a multi-cultural evil god of flies and etc). Well I am starting to use some King in Yellow flavor, but that doesn't count ;-)
I got rid of the 'unnatural skill' and added various religious / magical skills from medieval and later views of magic and miracles (and dark corrupting magical arts too) for the magic occult unnatural elements of the game. I even have an NPC (the group hasn't really gotten into using so far) that is a religious preacher skilled with miracles exorcism etc.
For the rules I LOVE CoC and DG. I mush them together (CoC Luck, Credit Rating, half & 5th skill etc, DG look on if you have a skill above X you get info no matter what - I do still have them roll a check to see how long it takes or if they get bonus info etc - projecting san loss onto bonds, character development between sessions) Plus the sanity rules for both are great.
So with that, I'd encourage you to pull the trigger on DG / CoC and run with it as X-Files etc and not keep it btb Cthluhu mind bending baggage.
I'd be better off finding a game that already does what I want or make one myself
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2024, 04:57:05 PMNowadays I find the concept of dungeon crawling, killing, looting, all for xp to be rather bizarre, but what else are you gonna do? As much as I'd love to play an X-Files inspired game, my only realistic option is Delta Green and that has Cthulhu mythos baggage that I'm not interested in.
I'm usually the first person to say that D&D is designed to be a relatively simplistic dungeon crawler, and that's what it does best, but it's honestly not that difficult to do something else with it. Even my OSR games are only about 20% dungeon crawling, and at least half the encounters get concluded without the use of deadly force. IME the biggest problem you run into with taking D&D out of the dungeon gameplay loop is that since the HP and spells/abilities-per-day numbers are based on an assumed amount of daily violence, you risk making the game a lot easier. Not everyone cares, but if you do, I think Free League's LOTR game and the Tales of Argosa have the solution in just pinning everything to a per-adventure rather than per-day refill.
I still wouldn't pick D&D for a dedicated investigative game, but with the 100s of RPGs out there, there's got to be something that does what you want.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 14, 2024, 05:57:50 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2024, 04:57:05 PMNowadays I find the concept of dungeon crawling, killing, looting, all for xp to be rather bizarre, but what else are you gonna do? As much as I'd love to play an X-Files inspired game, my only realistic option is Delta Green and that has Cthulhu mythos baggage that I'm not interested in.
I'm usually the first person to say that D&D is designed to be a relatively simplistic dungeon crawler, and that's what it does best, but it's honestly not that difficult to do something else with it. Even my OSR games are only about 20% dungeon crawling, and at least half the encounters get concluded without the use of deadly force. IME the biggest problem you run into with taking D&D out of the dungeon gameplay loop is that since the HP and spells/abilities-per-day numbers are based on an assumed amount of daily violence, you risk making the game a lot easier. Not everyone cares, but if you do, I think Free League's LOTR game and the Tales of Argosa have the solution in just pinning everything to a per-adventure rather than per-day refill.
I still wouldn't pick D&D for a dedicated investigative game, but with the 100s of RPGs out there, there's got to be something that does what you want.
The problem isn't finding a game. There's several others like Bureau 13, Chill, Dark•Matter, Conspiracy X, Tabloid!, I Psi, Night's Black Agents, etc. The problem is finding people interested in playing and getting everyone on the same page.
The easiest way to do it is to make some simple free rules myself and make up the setting myself with a primer that explains things as quickly and simply as possible, then take player input.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 14, 2024, 05:57:50 PMI'm usually the first person to say that D&D is designed to be a relatively simplistic dungeon crawler, and that's what it does best, but it's honestly not that difficult to do something else with it.
At some point wotc seems to have lost track of the idea of dungeoncrawling. I will not be surprised if they drop the random dungeon gen tables from Fake 5e.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 14, 2024, 06:12:55 PMThe easiest way to do it is to make some simple free rules myself and make up the setting myself with a primer that explains things as quickly and simply as possible, then take player input.
Probably true, especially if you build those rules on something like the Black Hack or PBTA, where there's already a bit of a modding/hacking culture. People seem to be more comfortable trying something new if it's a hack of an existing system rather than a ground up new build.
Quote from: Omega on July 14, 2024, 06:30:52 PMAt some point wotc seems to have lost track of the idea of dungeoncrawling. I will not be surprised if they drop the random dungeon gen tables from Fake 5e.
Of all the decisions WOTC's made, that's probably one of the more sensible ones. The majority of their audience doesn't dungeoncrawl, and wouldn't no matter how many rules they put in the DMG.
The old school style of dungeoncrawling is almost a different game from the way most people play D&D now, and you really have to be taught it. It's not what you're going to get out of fantasy books or movies. The only place a new player who just buys the PHB off a shelf is going to get the idea of room-by-room crawling is from videogames, and with the exception of a few notable indie games, it's not even popular there anymore.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 13, 2024, 09:51:33 AMQuote from: Opaopajr on July 13, 2024, 12:41:43 AMAbout Darkvision, people will always play fast and loose with the rules. Darkvision sounds restriction-free, hence why it is seen as objectively better. But in reality it is specific:
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of yourself as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
Dim light has a tight radius, everything beyond that requires a Dim Light active Perception roll, killing an action, to make anything out in vague broad strokes. Treating it like illusions requiring active Investigation rolls helps complicate the process.. I knew when GMs actually played that up in actual play players quickly found the usefulness of providing light for everyone. People stopped asking "Oh, I read that in the dark, darkvision," "I grab the correct (e.g. 'red') key and run, darkvision" and started to realize its limits. Bee sure to add the -5 penalty to Passive Perception, and unless the PC actively gets involved that's all you feed back.
But that requires playing the rules and reminding the players how things really work. Most of the time people are swayed by titles and subject lines. This is an old problem we've known for generations. Being isolated from your allies is always a risk, so being without light is useful for *some* reconnaissance but can also put you in grave danger. And torches are soooo cheap, a copper a piece, so there's little reason to play uncooperatively keeping your allies in the dark.
People skim and scan, which is close to "skip and scam," because what you allow is what will continue. ;)
I don't disagree with any of this, but I don't think it fully addresses the issue. I had two issues with Darkvision:
The issue for the purpose of this topic is that it's useful to the point where it can be perceived as a "no brainer" when choosing a character race. I don't think enforcing restrictions on color vision or fine detail is really enough to counteract that. IME the reason everyone wants darkvision is that it's a backstop. You can carry a light source, but you know you're going to be ok without one. It moves light from something you always need to deal with to something you use for particular problems. I don't run/play 5e, so I don't know the action economy/rules details, but a broad Perception penalty sounds like a good a good idea. More generally though, I think the only restriction that would make a real difference when it comes to player race choice would be if darkvision imposed combat penalties.
My other issue with it is that it's a pain for the DM to account for and adjudicate. Basically I find it annoying to have to tell half my players they see one thing and the other half something else, not to mention that the non-darkvision players are still hearing the description I give to my darkvision players (or seeing the revealed map on Roll20). If anything the finer details of how darkvision works compound that rather than simplify it.
In essence I do agree with your two points here as well. I've even brought up these issues way back here in 2014 on because it can be summed up in two ways (the second being near identical to your wording above:
1. WotC followed 2010s design ethos which is overly generous and doesn't like individualized limitations. Who knows if it a reaction to the past where people felt left out of the party. Perhaps because it reminds of old CCG design about "hoser cards" (also known as Silver Bullets). 2010s was a very "Everything is a universalized baseline then benefits are frosting on top!" design ethos.
7th Sea 2e is a fantastic example of the bleeding edge of this ethos, and why it doesn't work in practice. You need benefits AND flaws for true individuality, you lean on your strengths as you learn from your failures and adapt. Time-tested truths are revealed to be true because they are tested over time and shown to still work -- seemingly tautological but really more applied experience accrued.
2. And the second issue is as you say, "it's a pain for the DM to account for and adjudicate." Bookkeeping, bookkeeping, bookkeeping. It's what made D&D 4e (*cough* D&D Tactics) a pain with that stack of conditions. The human is not a computer, its processing power is not so focused to the exclusion of other things, so maintaining board states become taxing. A little light source management is exciting, but at a certain volume becomes taxing.
So, well, it's great if parties split and do recon, as you can keep that Goldilocks zone. But when it becomes a layer in a highly contested space... eventually parties will adapt to which direction they want the war to be won before even engaged. Hence an eventual magic tax threshold for the party to nuke from orbit this contested space. This just makes it a looming grudge match instead of an occasional exciting contest. The design was overly complicated with multi-layered functions to the point people don't want to engage with it more than necessary anymore.
Quote from: Opaopajr on July 15, 2024, 02:02:02 AMSo, well, it's great if parties split and do recon, as you can keep that Goldilocks zone. But when it becomes a layer in a highly contested space... eventually parties will adapt to which direction they want the war to be won before even engaged. Hence an eventual magic tax threshold for the party to nuke from orbit this contested space. This just makes it a looming grudge match instead of an occasional exciting contest. The design was overly complicated with multi-layered functions to the point people don't want to engage with it more than necessary anymore.
A thought that's been rolling around in my head for a couple of days here, and I think is on the same wavelength: I'm finding myself increasingly thinking about light management much the same way I think about encumbrance. Those two systems are the most universally ignored by players, and they're the only two systems I've repeatedly seen players continue to ignore even when the DM tries to enforce them. If they can't ignore them, they will try to bypass them (portable holes and the aforementioned continual light flashlights). That's ultimately what makes darkvision so attractive. It's seen (correctly or not) as a way of bypassing an annoying system.
I think a lot of people regard this as laziness which the players should get over. Player laziness is definitely real, but once you reach a critical mass of people disregarding a system, I have to look at that and say the system is probably the issue.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 15, 2024, 10:03:57 AMA thought that's been rolling around in my head for a couple of days here, and I think is on the same wavelength: I'm finding myself increasingly thinking about light management much the same way I think about encumbrance. Those two systems are the most universally ignored by players, and they're the only two systems I've repeatedly seen players continue to ignore even when the DM tries to enforce them. If they can't ignore them, they will try to bypass them (portable holes and the aforementioned continual light flashlights). That's ultimately what makes darkvision so attractive. It's seen (correctly or not) as a way of bypassing an annoying system.
I think a lot of people regard this as laziness which the players should get over. Player laziness is definitely real, but once you reach a critical mass of people disregarding a system, I have to look at that and say the system is probably the issue.
Encumbrance I'll grant you, though even there I think there are minimal nods to a system that will work with some care. Light, I'm not buying it. Yes, players are lazy any time they are given an option to be that way. Sometimes this is because of system fatigue. At other times, it is because it is the natural entropy of party dynamics. When I set up all my races to not have any kind of special see in the dark abilities--and most of my monsters the same way--and took out the "cast cheap magic and forget about it" options--then suddenly the players aren't lazy anymore.
It's not that big of a deal to decide who has the torch or lantern. It's not that big of a deal to worry about the torch going out if you drop it. It's not that big of a deal to track broad swaths of time and tell the players the torch is flickering. It's no real chore to have a few bits of light magic that also serve other purposes but are a finite resource that the players may hoard or use depending on the situation.
Of course, you must do all of that to make it work, because all those things work together. What I'm seeing is that the players have now gone from merely not being lazy into actively searching for ways to make this dynamic help them. That's where having most of the monsters need light also helps. The scouts are actively discussing how far ahead they want to be, with an idea of not giving themselves away but also having a chance to spot dangers before it is too late. Once the dynamic is embraced, it isn't a chore anymore.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:50:33 AMQuote from: ForgottenF on July 15, 2024, 10:03:57 AMA thought that's been rolling around in my head for a couple of days here, and I think is on the same wavelength: I'm finding myself increasingly thinking about light management much the same way I think about encumbrance. Those two systems are the most universally ignored by players, and they're the only two systems I've repeatedly seen players continue to ignore even when the DM tries to enforce them. If they can't ignore them, they will try to bypass them (portable holes and the aforementioned continual light flashlights). That's ultimately what makes darkvision so attractive. It's seen (correctly or not) as a way of bypassing an annoying system.
I think a lot of people regard this as laziness which the players should get over. Player laziness is definitely real, but once you reach a critical mass of people disregarding a system, I have to look at that and say the system is probably the issue.
Encumbrance I'll grant you, though even there I think there are minimal nods to a system that will work with some care. Light, I'm not buying it. Yes, players are lazy any time they are given an option to be that way. Sometimes this is because of system fatigue. At other times, it is because it is the natural entropy of party dynamics. When I set up all my races to not have any kind of special see in the dark abilities--and most of my monsters the same way--and took out the "cast cheap magic and forget about it" options--then suddenly the players aren't lazy anymore.
It's not that big of a deal to decide who has the torch or lantern. It's not that big of a deal to worry about the torch going out if you drop it. It's not that big of a deal to track broad swaths of time and tell the players the torch is flickering. It's no real chore to have a few bits of light magic that also serve other purposes but are a finite resource that the players may hoard or use depending on the situation.
Of course, you must do all of that to make it work, because all those things work together. What I'm seeing is that the players have now gone from merely not being lazy into actively searching for ways to make this dynamic help them. That's where having most of the monsters need light also helps. The scouts are actively discussing how far ahead they want to be, with an idea of not giving themselves away but also having a chance to spot dangers before it is too late. Once the dynamic is embraced, it isn't a chore anymore.
Greetings!
Yep, Steven! I think it is important for the DM to take these details seriously. Encumbrance, Torches, Food, Water. Enforce them against the Players whenever they get lazy or stupid.
Most players get with the program quickly.
If they choose not to take such things seriously, then the giant Otyughs waiting for them in the shadows can eat them.
In a dungeon, I once had a player that acted stupid, and was devoured by an Otyugh.
That certainly got the rest of the group's attention. *Laughing*
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
One of my players who DMs now and then has been using the food, drink and starvation rules from Wilderness Survival Guide and think the lighting rules from Dungeoneer Survival Guide.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:50:33 AMEncumbrance I'll grant you, though even there I think there are minimal nods to a system that will work with some care.
Of the two systems, encumbrance definitely sees more interest in terms of people trying to find hacks for the system to make it more palatable. Personally, I think a slot-based system is the way to go, especially if combined with some smart adventure/campaign design to keep the amount of loot the players need to be carrying down.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:50:33 AMWhen I set up all my races to not have any kind of special see in the dark abilities--and most of my monsters the same way...
Yeah, I'd say these two together solve about 80% of the problem. If the monsters can't all see in the dark, that immediately makes it where pitch black environments are going to be rare. People are a lot more tolerant of this sort of thing if it's a special challenge for specific areas, rather than a constant hassle. Also I think people are more on board with that style because it's more realistic and therefore more intuitive. That's my preferred approach, and when I've been able to employ it, I've had very little in the way of light-related problems.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:50:33 AMIt's not that big of a deal to decide who has the torch or lantern. It's not that big of a deal to worry about the torch going out if you drop it. It's not that big of a deal to track broad swaths of time and tell the players the torch is flickering. It's no real chore to have a few bits of light magic that also serve other purposes but are a finite resource that the players may hoard or use depending on the situation.
With light sources I find the usual problem is either people not wanting to give up a free hand to hold the torch, or not wanting to be bothered with the realistic details like lighting one, dealing with smoke or shadows, getting night-blinded, etc. You can dodge around a lot of that with minimal hand-waving. The timing issue is more for the DM, because you'll probably never get players to track it, but it compounds with other resource management elements. Unless you're policing encumbrance the players will never run out of torches, and at that point it becomes pointless busywork for the players to buy them and for the DM to track when they burn out.
The problem I see pop up with these, and you see it to a lesser degree with food stores and ammunition, is what I sometimes call "player nullification". DMs will start off trying to enforce the rule, and as long as they're actively being reminded about it, players will play along. But as soon as the DM stops asking, they quietly start ignoring or bending the rules. The DM soon realizes that the only way the rule is going to stay active is if they check the character sheets every session, and usually gives up.
If players did this sort of thing with HP, XP or spells slots, I think everyone would happily call it cheating, but in my experience that almost never happens. To me, a system that some people cheat is just people cheating. A system everyone cheats is probably an unreasonable system.
Again, I think you can mitigate this problem with smart design and GM choices, but you have to be willing to spot where the problem is and meet the players halfway. As often as not, the problem comes from people just forgetting to mark things off or update their character sheet. When it's not that, the problem is usually not wanting to stop the game to track what the players consider to be unimportant systems. Often the GM is just as guilty of that one, which then means the player feels it's out of their hands. So the solution, to me, is a combination of mindful GM-ing and systems that pare down the paperwork/brainload for both the GM and players.
There is a subtle bit of player psychology involved as well. It's akin to the dynamic you sometimes get with "hero points" used for both avoiding death and "doing something cool". If that's all it is, a significant chunk of players will hoard the points to avoid death, and thus never use them to do something cool. If you want to break that dynamic, then you've got to make the latter more attractive somehow. (Can't say I've got an answer for that one, either. Just that the problem is the same.)
After some experimenting, I found that the key to the torch lantern thing was several small things working together:
- Enough encumbrance to make torches a thing, but not necessarily onerous. There's no good reason not to carry some torches.
- The monsters needing them too means that the monsters stock them. You can replenish when you win, or you retreat and it doesn't matter, because now you aren't in the dark (assuming good lines of retreat).
- Giving options for characters to optimize around quick draw and/or single-handed weapons--with the express purpose of having a hand free. Helps that I don't make switching a weapon free actions without some skill.
- Making a torch a decent backup weapon in a pinch--albeit chance it will go out. Making 2-weapon fighting not some crazy class niche but a thing that anyone can do that invests some weapon training in it. Sure, sword and torch isn't the best combat combo, but it is a valid combo.
- Having rules that make torches not likely to go out, but just enough to make the players worry. So they carry some spares because of that--not because of the length of the delve.
- Having "grenades" that need an open flame to light them--since magic isn't a reliable choice for that.
- Putting "torch" in with "unarmed" weapon training to make it kind of an improvised thing.
Essentially, I made "torch" just enough of a combat option that having a hand free for it isn't the complete non-starter that it is in some systems. It's even on the weapon list to reinforce that.
Plus, there's always hiring someone to carry it, if you can afford them. I keep the early parties poor enough that they could do that, but they'd usually rather do something else with the money. Not to mention, having a real morale system means that carrying it yourself means it is less likely to run off at a key moment.
Short version: Make caring about the torch less trouble than not caring.
Quote from: SHARK on July 15, 2024, 11:21:48 AMI think it is important for the DM to take these details seriously. Encumbrance, Torches, Food, Water. Enforce them against the Players whenever they get lazy or stupid.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 15, 2024, 01:37:13 PMThe problem I see pop up with these, and you see it to a lesser degree with food stores and ammunition, is what I sometimes call "player nullification". DMs will start off trying to enforce the rule, and as long as they're actively being reminded about it, players will play along. But as soon as the DM stops asking, they quietly start ignoring or bending the rules. The DM soon realizes that the only way the rule is going to stay active is if they check the character sheets every session, and usually gives up.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 03:54:22 PMShort version: Make caring about the torch less trouble than not caring.
I generally agree with ForgottenF and Steven Mitchell here, but it comes down to
fun.
Playing with details like torches and encumbrance
can potentially be fun, but if it isn't, then it's better to handwave it away - like going to the bathroom or avoiding infection from cuts or bad food. I wouldn't make the players work just to achieve realism for realism's sake.
In my experience, the biggest issue with torches is that they tend to ruin stealth or surprise. At least by publication, most dungeons aren't lit and the monsters can see in the dark, started from infravision and ultravision in AD&D. Having PCs who can sneak around in the dark is really useful.
Quote from: finarvyn on July 12, 2024, 05:20:37 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2024, 02:20:32 PMThe problem I can predict with the freakshow approach is that it messes with the logic of how adventurers determine "is it a monster or not?" If the PCs look like monsters, then how do they keep track of what monsters are okay to kill? Do they wait to be attacked? Do monsters have red circles around them to indicate they're hostile?
Agreed, and RPGs are going down that slippery slope already. Players want to play character types which are typically monsters, so then rulebooks start creating rules for PC monsters, then somebody decides that not all of those monsters are bad, then folks feel bad about fictitious creatures feeling bad about other creatures being better than they are, then we wind up trying to be PC about creatures that don't even exist.
I blame Drizzt, as he's the first one I can remember that did this. Drow were clearly evil, then Drizzt became a misunderstood drow, then everyone wanted to be a misunderstood drow, then they had to re-do the Ranger class because players wanted to do all of the things the Drizzt did that broke the rules. Spirals out of control. We can't have one outlier any more but instead have to change the rules so that everyone can be that character type. Ugh.
it's almost like killing people who arent bad has a bad side effect on humans who would have know then again why arent humans seen as the monsters since they do most the stuff orcs do but better and they play it off as "its for the greater good lol suck it up" till someone else kicks them in the chin
Quote from: Omega on July 15, 2024, 11:56:06 AMOne of my players who DMs now and then has been using the food, drink and starvation rules from Wilderness Survival Guide and think the lighting rules from Dungeoneer Survival Guide.
Could you summarize those rules? I owned both of those guides decades ago and didn't find them useful, so I got rid of them. Now I hear that there WAS something useful in them. :-(
As odd as this sounds, our long running Rifts campaign was all humans.
1. RoboTech Macross Veritech pilot/full conversion 'Borg. It was his first character, so he wanted to keep him when we played Rifts. He then Dual Classed as a 'Borg, though. A bit of a power gamer munchkin, but Rifts is so gonzo it actually wasn't a problem.
2. A techno wizard.
3. Another Veritech pilot, this time from the Sentinels. The power armor Cyclone came in handy when not flying a VF-6 Alpha wingman to the Macross VT pilot in his VF-1.
4. An Apoc from Wormwood. We allowed them to leave their home dimension.
5. A Super Hero from Heroes Unlimited rifted in and stuck there.
Quote from: Omega on July 12, 2024, 06:59:16 PMAD&D Conan, the 2e & 3e Masque of the Red Death and 90% of the 3e d20 Modern Polyhedeon settings were human only. Think the 3e Dark*Matter setting was too.
Dragon Warrior is an old RPG from Britain in the '80s also is human only.
Dragon Warriors (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/90926/Dragon-Warriors)
Currently Pay-What-You-Want on DTRPG. Set the price to zero, and you get a free PDF. I set the cost of my hardcover to be the minimum of $1.25 or such, and it was actually the shipping that cost the most at $15 or so.
This is partly a setting problem, partly a (lack of) roleplaying problem, and partly a rule problem.
In general most of the D&D settings encourage the menagerie issue because an endless stream of creatures & races provides content for publishing. Developing a setting that only had a limited subset of creatures is not in the business interest, and takes thoughtful design to make it work, rather than just throwing in anything and everything and trading off of the superficial fantasy tropes.
To address the rule problem, I've considered developing a system for my own games that deals with group composition. Spitballing, if your player party is 75% or more of a single race, characters of that race gain some kind of extra cohesion benefit.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 03:54:22 PMThere is a subtle bit of player psychology involved as well. It's akin to the dynamic you sometimes get with "hero points" used for both avoiding death and "doing something cool". If that's all it is, a significant chunk of players will hoard the points to avoid death, and thus never use them to do something cool. If you want to break that dynamic, then you've got to make the latter more attractive somehow. (Can't say I've got an answer for that one, either. Just that the problem is the same.)
Agreed. Players will tend towards the boring but safe choice unless the alternative is heavily incentivized. It reminds me of how I always finish a computer RPG with hundreds of healing items in my inventory.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 03:54:22 PMfter some experimenting, I found that the key to the torch lantern thing was several small things working together:
A lot of these are really good ideas, some I hadn't thought of before. For brevity, I'll just pull out one.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 03:54:22 PM- Giving options for characters to optimize around quick draw and/or single-handed weapons--with the express purpose of having a hand free. Helps that I don't make switching a weapon free actions without some skill.
I'd be curious for more detail on what you mean here. One thing that's common across every iteration of D&D I've played is that most character types nerf themselves considerably without the use of both hands (whether for a shield, dual wielding, casting spells, or using a bow). I know 5e has the "dueling" fighting style for martial classes, but that always seemed like objectively the worst one.
The switching weapons thing is a weird one. I've always been used to the rule that dropping a weapon is a free action and drawing/sheathing one is the equivalent of half a round's action (whatever that means in a given system). That's so ingrained in me that I don't even know what game I got it from. I'm sure most players would rather have weapon-switching be a single action, and I think I've seen some newer games go that route, but it's a little too easy for my taste. Intuitively it seems most weapons --maybe not polearms or bows-- should be free/quick/bonus (as applicable) actions to draw, but still an action to sheathe. How that effects torches I couldn't say, because you've got to include time to light one.
Quote from: jhkim on July 15, 2024, 04:35:49 PMIn my experience, the biggest issue with torches is that they tend to ruin stealth or surprise. At least by publication, most dungeons aren't lit and the monsters can see in the dark, started from infravision and ultravision in AD&D. Having PCs who can sneak around in the dark is really useful.
The problem I find is that under old school rules sneaking up on the monsters isn't all that useful unless the whole party can do it. If only one PC can do it, it's probably going to be the thief. The old-school backstab is pretty hard to set up even if you can approach the baddies unawares, and if you do get it off, it's not going to reliably kill any monster consequential enough to be worth the risk. I know some games have an assassin class to solve this, but that's not what I'm running. Even a full party surprise attack isn't that much of a game changer unless the dice really go your way. I usually let thieves sneak attack from range and have played with the idea that a successful party ambush triggers an immediate morale save for the baddies.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on July 15, 2024, 09:29:27 PMDragon Warrior is an old RPG from Britain in the '80s also is human only.
It does have optional rules for playing elves, etc., but yeah by default it's humans only. If memory serves, it also has a few different tiers of sight for monsters, to account for them having better than human vision without actually being able to see in pitch blackness.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 15, 2024, 10:15:26 PMQuote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 03:54:22 PM- Giving options for characters to optimize around quick draw and/or single-handed weapons--with the express purpose of having a hand free. Helps that I don't make switching a weapon free actions without some skill.
I'd be curious for more detail on what you mean here. One thing that's common across every iteration of D&D I've played is that most character types nerf themselves considerably without the use of both hands (whether for a shield, dual wielding, casting spells, or using a bow). I know 5e has the "dueling" fighting style for martial classes, but that always seemed like objectively the worst one.
The switching weapons thing is a weird one. I've always been used to the rule that dropping a weapon is a free action and drawing/sheathing one is the equivalent of half a round's action (whatever that means in a given system). That's so ingrained in me that I don't even know what game I got it from. I'm sure most players would rather have weapon-switching be a single action, and I think I've seen some newer games go that route, but it's a little too easy for my taste. Intuitively it seems most weapons --maybe not polearms or bows-- should be free/quick/bonus (as applicable) actions to draw, but still an action to sheathe. How that effects torches I couldn't say, because you've got to include time to light one.
By default, I have sheathing or readying a weapon require a "move" or an "action". In the normal flow, a character gets one of each. Dropping is free. So technically you can, for example, drop a bow (for free), draw a melee weapon (move) and attack something that got into melee with you. That's a trifle generous, but I left it there because an archer stuck in melee is already somewhat hosed anyway.
I make readying medium or large shields count as readying a weapon. They provide better defense than bucklers and small shields, which can be "worn" on the lower arm and readied for free. Except for swords, battle axes, and morningstars, most of my 2-handed weapons can't be sheathed. So they have that disadvantage. Meanwhile, bows have natural advantages except for being 2H and requiring ammo, but they don't benefit quite as much from high skill as melee weapons. I say all that to then note that smaller, 1-handed melee weapons, darts, and javelins are the only ones that qualify for the fast draw training. Meanwhile, the Great/Double/Single/Weapon&Shield styles require a single weapon pick. Finally, weapon distinctions become less import as the character levels, since bonus attack and damage from fighting characters matters.
Which means that a character who maximizes something like a short sword / dagger combo (single/double, sword and dagger training options, fast draw) is only an "unarmed" training away from using a torch in combat almost as well as the sword/dagger option. Even without that training, he's only giving up a conditional bonus attack with the dagger when holding the torch.
Meanwhile, spells only require one hand free. That makes your typical dedicated caster a good option to carry a light source--especially early when they want to stay out of the fight as much as possible. It's not uncommon for the healer to carry a torch and just wave it in the face of anyone getting close while dodging of doing a fighting withdrawal. That's what happens when low-level fighting types are stone-cold killers compared to what spells can do in combat.
Every last new player fights me on the weapon switching thing at first. Every last one. They also complain that loading a bow takes an action--until they spend a weapon training pick on the appropriate option to make it free. They they play. Then I explain that all this works together to mean that whatever niche you carve out with your fighting can't simply be replicated by someone else taking one "feat". They they start to explore the tactics this encourages--like maybe switching your bow out before the foes get into melee, so that you don't need to drop it and leave it when the party retreats.
In fact, that's the best compliment I got this spring when the complaints switched to enthusiasm: "This is so much more tactical than what we can do in other games!" They mean recent D&D. Only later did I tell them about AD&D. :)
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:39:02 PMBy default, I have sheathing or readying a weapon require a "move" or an "action". In the normal flow, a character gets one of each. Dropping is free. So technically you can, for example, drop a bow (for free), draw a melee weapon (move) and attack something that got into melee with you. That's a trifle generous, but I left it there because an archer stuck in melee is already somewhat hosed anyway.
The simulationist part of me really wants to let players make an argument for how long it should take to draw a weapon based on how it's being worn. For example, I've always argued that a sling should be able to just be wrapped loosely around your hand and therefore be "pre-drawn" as long as you can free your slinging arm. Either way, a dagger worn at the right hip should be quicker on the draw than an axe slung over your shoulder, and so on. Realistically I know that unless I build my own game with set equip slots for your belt, back, etc., it'll just lead to endless litigation and attempts to cheese the system.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:39:02 PMI make readying medium or large shields count as readying a weapon. They provide better defense than bucklers and small shields, which can be "worn" on the lower arm and readied for free.
The historically minded part of me wants to take exception to that, but I think at this point most people know that's not how a buckler works. It's relatively harmless to had-waive it.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:39:02 PMThat makes your typical dedicated caster a good option to carry a light source--especially early when they want to stay out of the fight as much as possible. It's not uncommon for the healer to carry a torch and just wave it in the face of anyone getting close while dodging of doing a fighting withdrawal.
That's curious to me, as I've generally seen wizards cling fiercely onto whatever limited close combat ability their class can provide. I suppose the missing ingredient is the torch being about as effective as the staff or dagger they could otherwise use. Out of curiosity, what's your fighting withdrawal rule? Most versions of it I've seen are so gimped it's rarely worth using.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:39:02 PMEvery last new player fights me on the weapon switching thing at first. Every last one. They also complain that loading a bow takes an action--until they spend a weapon training pick on the appropriate option to make it free.
I agree 100% that knocking an arrow should be an action. It should take at least as long as drawing a dagger. And boy can I relate to you there, because the one time I tried to put that rule into a game my players
hated it. I find the fact that some OSR games give a bowman a better attack rate than a melee attacker with minimal training a bit ludicrous.
Looking at the system as a whole, I think I'd have a hard time picturing it without seeing it in action over the course of a campaign. The only weapon training rule I have much experience with is the one in Hyperborea, which just improves attack rate and provides some +1s.
Quote from: DUCATISLO on July 15, 2024, 04:58:17 PMit's almost like killing people who arent bad has a bad side effect on humans who would have know then again why arent humans seen as the monsters since they do most the stuff orcs do but better and they play it off as "its for the greater good lol suck it up" till someone else kicks them in the chin
Forgotten Realms has the orcs pretty much flattening civilization on a regular basis. Drow are a recurring and major threat. And thats just two.
The old "The Realm" setting in the B1 and B2 modules states humanity is occupying a small area of a mostly monster controlled land and barely hanging on. Was never developed though.
Greyhawk and Karameikos are closest to what you describe with humans at the fore more than most other races.
Eberron was a goblin controlled world till things from another dimension invaded. No clue who is running the show now.
Quote from: finarvyn on July 15, 2024, 06:35:52 PMQuote from: Omega on July 15, 2024, 11:56:06 AMOne of my players who DMs now and then has been using the food, drink and starvation rules from Wilderness Survival Guide and think the lighting rules from Dungeoneer Survival Guide.
Could you summarize those rules? I owned both of those guides decades ago and didn't find them useful, so I got rid of them. Now I hear that there WAS something useful in them. :-(
gah thats a mess but heres the gist.
First off a person could survive a number of days with water but no food based on their combined STR and CON score.
4 days at 15 or less, 10 days at 36 or more.
Each day after than had to make a STR or CON check every 12 hours. Using the stat as the target number to roll equal or under. With a +1 penalty on the roll per check thereafter.
Once fail the check they become weakened and subsequent checks are now a cumulative +2 penalty.
2nd fail and becomes distresed and 3rd fail and is incapacitated and will likely die within hours.
Weakened meant was at a -1 penalty on attack rolls and any dodge saves. -1 more per day and recovered the same rate per day eats.
Distressed meant had all the weakened penalties and if did any strenuous activity for more than 2 turns (20min) then a CON save or become fatigued. Eating and a CON save moved the condition back to just weakened.
Incapacitated left the character too weak to do any activity. Has to eat two days in a row and make a STR/CON save to move back to Distressed. If an incapacitated creature fails to eat after 12 hours they start losing 1d6 HP every hour. AND gains a -1 penalty to to hit and saves per hour in this state. Eating begins HP recovery at 1d4 per hour and the penalties diminish per hour too.
Going without water was worse. A creature could only go 3 days nefore suffering effects. High water content foods would add to the time limit. Women could last 1 day longer and fat or heavy people gained a day too. +1 day if was not doing anything strenuous. -1 days if the temperature was 90+. -1 more day if doesnt eat. - another day if STR or CON are less than 8
And for each day after its the same as if starving. STR/CON checks. Weakened-Distressed-Exhausted-hp loss and then death.
Humans, Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Half-Elves needed 1lb of food/day. Elves needed 1/3 lb, Halflings and Gnomes 1/2 lb. Water was a bit more complex based on temperature and activity.
Thank you. Something to ponder for a future camapign. :)
My next game is humanocentric, nothing is extrordinary or unusual if there aren't humans as the majority for comparison.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 15, 2024, 11:20:55 PMQuote from: Steven Mitchell on July 15, 2024, 10:39:02 PMThat makes your typical dedicated caster a good option to carry a light source--especially early when they want to stay out of the fight as much as possible. It's not uncommon for the healer to carry a torch and just wave it in the face of anyone getting close while dodging of doing a fighting withdrawal.
That's curious to me, as I've generally seen wizards cling fiercely onto whatever limited close combat ability their class can provide. I suppose the missing ingredient is the torch being about as effective as the staff or dagger they could otherwise use. Out of curiosity, what's your fighting withdrawal rule? Most versions of it I've seen are so gimped it's rarely worth using.
My magic classes are on a continuum of magic/combat ratios, with the sorcerer as the most dedicated (closets to a D&D wizard). However, the types of spells are based on a magic tradition, and any class can pick any tradition. So sorcerer hasn't picked that because that's the only way to get certain kind of spells, but has rather picked it because they are ok with limited combat and maximizing their magic. If they didn't want that, they'd back of a into an enchanter or adept. That said, like the D&D wizard, a sorcerer can pick their moments to wade into combat, even melee, though most will try to stick with ranged weapons. They actually have more weapon picks than their D&D equivalents, and more skill with them, which is what makes torch a viable weapon in some cases. They just can't take much of a hit, and the system is biased towards offense.
Leaving melee against a foe with a melee weapon provokes a free bonus attack by that foe. This is much like the AD&D 1E rule. Someone wanting to leave melee can Dodge (+3 Defense and move as an action, then use their normal move to move again), Fighting Withdrawal (+2 Defense, attack at -4 to hit and move as an action, then use their normal move to move again), or Flee (No bonus to defense, and basically amounts to a triple move). The fighting withdrawal usually makes more sense for heavily armored characters fighting a rearguard action while everyone else gets a head start, but can make sense for, say, a sorcerer with a torch confronted by 3 goblins.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 15, 2024, 11:20:55 PMThat's curious to me, as I've generally seen wizards cling fiercely onto whatever limited close combat ability their class can provide. I suppose the missing ingredient is the torch being about as effective as the staff or dagger they could otherwise use.
Speaking for my own system, a lit torch counts as a club (simple melee weapon) that deals equivalent fire damage. So more than a dagger (slightly less accurate), but less than a staff (though a staff requires both hands).
Torches are are also super effective against undead in my setting because they are universally vulnerable to fire in the setting. Firelight (and sunlight) also makes the incorporeal undead solid (meaning they can't pass through illuminated surfaces and can be hit by mundane weapons while in its light) so, unless you have magic, a torch is often one of the best weapons to have if facing the undead.
Similarly, only poor quality torches have a chance of going out when used this way. Properly treated ones are soaked in pitch or similar that might be consumed a bit quicker if you're swinging it around a lot, but are unlikely to be doused by anything but full submersion or extremely high sustained winds (and advanced or legendary torches not even then as they use self-oxidizing alchemical compounds for fuel).
Basically, torches are vital adventuring gear in the setting... up there with rope, stakes/pitons, and flasks of oil... though only partly for the visibility they provide.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on July 16, 2024, 12:13:31 PMMy next game is humanocentric, nothing is extrordinary or unusual if there aren't humans as the majority for comparison.
Completely agree!
Honestly I think 5e may be the most humanocentric D&D version for just that reason. Someone else on this thread put it as "non-humans are just humans wearing halloween masks" (paraphrasing) Pointy-eared humans, stocky bearded humans, short hairy-footed humans, scaly humans, tusked humans... In order to emphasize every race's "humanity", make it "relatable", and facilitate players' self-insertion as that race WotC has made playing a true human essentially an aesthetic choice at the cost of not having darkvision. Playing a non-human character feels like in game cosplay to me.
Limiting the race options lets me push everything else into even more weird or interesting directions.
I'm gonna be honest here, I've only ever played one human character in my entire time playing dnd. He was a swamp monk who talked like Dale Grible and he sadly didn't survive the one shot. Closest I've come since are a tiefling and an assimar. I just don't have any interest in playing what I already am in reality.
Quote from: Shalashashka on July 16, 2024, 10:30:08 PMI'm gonna be honest here, I've only ever played one human character in my entire time playing dnd. He was a swamp monk who talked like Dale Grible and he sadly didn't survive the one shot. Closest I've come since are a tiefling and an assimar. I just don't have any interest in playing what I already am in reality.
Your class makes you what you aren't in real life.
Quote from: Omega on July 16, 2024, 07:14:37 AMHumans, Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Half-Elves needed 1lb of food/day. Elves needed 1/3 lb, Halflings and Gnomes 1/2 lb. Water was a bit more complex based on temperature and activity.
The 1lb of food per day might work if they were sedentary, but if they are adventuring, then it would be more like 2 lbs or more per day.
Quote from: LordBP on July 17, 2024, 10:14:55 AMQuote from: Omega on July 16, 2024, 07:14:37 AMHumans, Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Half-Elves needed 1lb of food/day. Elves needed 1/3 lb, Halflings and Gnomes 1/2 lb. Water was a bit more complex based on temperature and activity.
The 1lb of food per day might work if they were sedentary, but if they are adventuring, then it would be more like 2 lbs or more per day.
Depends on the food.
A military MRE weighs about 0.58 pounds and provides about 1260 calories... or about 2200 calories per pound. The food storage is more efficient and spoilage is less, but the fundamental calories per gram of food doesn't change.
A 180 lb. man walking at 3 mph (the D&D standard over clear terrain) burns about 270 calories per hour... or about 2160 calories if they walked for eight hours straight.
I'd say the pound per day is rounded off and then averaged with less active days (dungeoneering presumes more like 300' per hour just half a mile of walking in an eight hour day).
If you needed to do a vast amount of overland travel (say a two week hike along a trade road) then, yeah it probably falls a bit short, but for typical D&D behavior of a day or two to a dungeon, a day or three of exploring it, and a few days back... yeah, a pound a day is probably "close enough."
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on July 17, 2024, 09:42:58 AMQuote from: Shalashashka on July 16, 2024, 10:30:08 PMI'm gonna be honest here, I've only ever played one human character in my entire time playing dnd. He was a swamp monk who talked like Dale Grible and he sadly didn't survive the one shot. Closest I've come since are a tiefling and an assimar. I just don't have any interest in playing what I already am in reality.
Your class makes you what you aren't in real life.
That just doesn't interest me, personally.
Quote from: Shalashashka on July 17, 2024, 03:58:52 PMQuote from: Banjo Destructo on July 17, 2024, 09:42:58 AMQuote from: Shalashashka on July 16, 2024, 10:30:08 PMI'm gonna be honest here, I've only ever played one human character in my entire time playing dnd. He was a swamp monk who talked like Dale Grible and he sadly didn't survive the one shot. Closest I've come since are a tiefling and an assimar. I just don't have any interest in playing what I already am in reality.
Your class makes you what you aren't in real life.
That just doesn't interest me, personally.
You're intitled to your opinion and preference, but for me, playing a human wizard that is casting fireballs and other spells isn't that different from playing a gnome or elf wizard, because you don't cast spells in real life.
Playing a human fighter, as much as I might practice with a sword in real life, allows me to pretend to do so many things I can't do in real life, fighting against monsters and looting treasure, performing deeds and feats that would be impossible in real life. .
I just don't understand the "be what I'm not in real life" when it comes to wanting to be a different species, because nothing you do in an RPG is what you do in real life, so being a human character doesn't seem like a "deal breaker" unless you just hate being a human in real life? I mean maybe you don't, that's just the only reason I can come up with off the top of my head.
There's a segment of players who just have no idea how to make an actually interesting character with a personality and interesting character traits or conflicts. Because there's nothing intrinsically interesting about their characters, they have to come up with some way to make them seem interesting. One of the most common methods these players use to make their bland characters seem interesting is to make them some odd or exotic race. My boring character with no goals or personality will be interesting if I make it a cat person or a space elf or whatever. They think human characters are boring because the only interesting thing about their characters is that they are wolf people or whatever. What they don't realize is that being a plasmoid doesn't make a character interesting. If your character wouldn't be interesting as a human, your character isn't interesting period.
There's also a ,mercifully small, group of players who insist on pushing their fetish into everything they do. Furry players have a bad reputation because a disproportionate number of them fall into this category. They don't just want to play an anthropomorphic animal character. They have a compulsion to shove their fur fetish into everything they do whether it's wanted or not. They will try to turn your game into furry porn. They can't help themselves. Not all furries are like this but there are enough of them that people have noticed a pattern and responded accordingly. That person who wants to play an anthropomorphic animal character might not be a problem but letting them into your game is taking a chance. It's a lot less trouble just to ban those races and be done with it. It sill eliminate some good players along with the weirdos but it will also cut out a lot of problems before they become problems.
Yosemitemike,
Both of your reasons are why I have some randomness options in my games--even though the players main character is pretty much whatever they want. I want some interesting races. I want some cat people or wolf people or whatever. However, I've found that a player that is perfectly OK with playing a random human will also not exhibit any of those annoying behaviors you mention. It's a filter that lets me flirt with what would otherwise be risky, without really risking very much. Of course, the other, greater filter is only playing with your friends or people closely vetted.
There's a positive side to this, not just a filter. Generally, a person willing to play the random human will probably do a pretty good job with any of the other options.
Sure, that means that I might filter out some good players unfairly. Since I never have a shortage of players, I'm not all that torn up about it. Read an article once about an engineering firm in the Midwest whose first filter on resumes was to immediately trash any resume from an Ivy League graduate. His reasoning was that many of them didn't know how to work. The ones that did know how to work would have no trouble getting a job elsewhere. Bottom line, not every potential player is owed a fair shot at your table.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 11:26:39 AMQuote from: LordBP on July 17, 2024, 10:14:55 AMQuote from: Omega on July 16, 2024, 07:14:37 AMHumans, Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Half-Elves needed 1lb of food/day. Elves needed 1/3 lb, Halflings and Gnomes 1/2 lb. Water was a bit more complex based on temperature and activity.
The 1lb of food per day might work if they were sedentary, but if they are adventuring, then it would be more like 2 lbs or more per day.
Depends on the food.
A military MRE weighs about 0.58 pounds and provides about 1260 calories... or about 2200 calories per pound. The food storage is more efficient and spoilage is less, but the fundamental calories per gram of food doesn't change.
A 180 lb. man walking at 3 mph (the D&D standard over clear terrain) burns about 270 calories per hour... or about 2160 calories if they walked for eight hours straight.
I'd say the pound per day is rounded off and then averaged with less active days (dungeoneering presumes more like 300' per hour just half a mile of walking in an eight hour day).
If you needed to do a vast amount of overland travel (say a two week hike along a trade road) then, yeah it probably falls a bit short, but for typical D&D behavior of a day or two to a dungeon, a day or three of exploring it, and a few days back... yeah, a pound a day is probably "close enough."
Pemmican is around 3,500 calories per pound, grain around 1,600 per pound, and dried meat around 1,600 per pound. For pemmican, it's better used as a thickener to a stew as the tallow doesn't melt in your mouth like other fats will. You could use hardtack or a hard bread for the grain. I won't get into vegetables or fruit as they usually don't have dense calories per pound, so aren't really useful to take on a trip (pure sugar would be, but might be expensive).
For the walking example, the 8 hours of walking still leaves 16 hours of sitting (80 calories per hour), so the total would bump up to around 3,400 calories which is going to be a couple pounds of food.
Wearing gear while walking/hiding is going to use more calories also as most will have at least 40-50 pounds of gear on them (armor, weapons, backpack with food/water, etc).
Combat is the biggest unknown as it could burn much more calories depending on how much the party was in combat. If it's a lot, then the calories used per day might double or triple.
For the MREs, back when I was in the Army (a while back so they may have changed it), the allotment of MREs per person was 3 assuming no hot meals were provided. Everyone ate all of the MREs and all the pogey bait that we could smuggle into our packs and carry, so we were probably eating 3,500 to 4,000 calories per day.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 17, 2024, 05:52:07 PMBottom line, not every potential player is owed a fair shot at your table.
<gasp> You animal! Lock your doors, the RPG police are coming for you! lol
Quote from: yosemitemike on July 17, 2024, 05:28:51 PMThere's also a ,mercifully small, group of players who insist on pushing their fetish into everything they do. Furry players have a bad reputation because a disproportionate number of them fall into this category. They don't just want to play an anthropomorphic animal character. They have a compulsion to shove their fur fetish into everything they do whether it's wanted or not. They will try to turn your game into furry porn. They can't help themselves. Not all furries are like this but there are enough of them that people have noticed a pattern and responded accordingly. That person who wants to play an anthropomorphic animal character might not be a problem but letting them into your game is taking a chance. It's a lot less trouble just to ban those races and be done with it. It sill eliminate some good players along with the weirdos but it will also cut out a lot of problems before they become problems.
This can be a particular problem with Traveller. Aslan and Vargr are viewed as merely lion-men and wolf-men by furry fanatics even though there are over four hundred pages of in game lore written and published for each race. Aslan and Vargr were originally created to give players the quintessential chance to play beings, "that think as well as humans but not like humans". Traveller Book 0 says flat out that, "Aliens should not be humans in funny rubber suits."
I don't really have a solid solution for this except for kicking out anyone who tries to exercise their furry fetish at the table and reserving allowing players to run an alien until I'm sure that they will take it seriously.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 11:26:39 AMbut for typical D&D behavior of a ten-minute work day followed by 8-hours of rest
The typical D&D party doesn't work all that hard anymore.
Want a humanocentric campaign? Give humans more bonuses than non-human races. Very few players will choose races with less goodies attached.
Of course, the far easier way to run a humanocentric campaign is to make humans the only PC race.
Run the campaign you want. Let the players then decide if they want to play.
Fake 5e Races, my bad, Ancestries... no longer have stat bonuses at all.
But now everyone starts out with a feat instead of just variant humans.
Quote from: Omega on July 18, 2024, 04:50:33 AMFake 5e Races, my bad, Ancestries... no longer have stat bonuses at all.
But now everyone starts out with a feat instead of just variant humans.
To be 100% fair, they did give strong races traits like "you have proficiency in athletics and treat your size as one larger for lifting and carrying" and small creatures automatically have a penalty to lifting and carrying so that just makes the Strength attribute a "relative to your species" range instead of a universal one.
They have similar things like "add 1d8 feet to each long or high jump you make" or "proficient in stealth and squeeze as a small creature" or "advantage on perception checks" or similar that reflect innate racial traits in arguably more interesting ways than +2 Strength or Dexterity or Wisdom does.
I've never particularly cared for 5e in general (I never bought even the PHB) and I won't be buying the new stuff either, but in terms of system mechanics (such as they are) proficiency in athletics (scaling +2-6 to most strength related actions) and double lifting and carrying (so a 10 Str can carry as much as someone of another race with 20 Str) is much more likely to produce a feeling of "this character is strong" than a "+2 to Str attribute (so +1 to Str related checks)" ever will.
To be further fair, I went that way with my own design years ago as the numbers required to reflect both a sprite and a giant would be too far apart for the underlying math to work. So I opted for physiological differences to be mostly represented by traits rather than attribute adjustments.
As such, where 5e has gone (that change preceded D&D 2024 - it first showed up in Tasha's and the Monster Races book) isn't so much shocking to me as a "look who finally caught up?"
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on July 17, 2024, 04:42:01 PMQuote from: Shalashashka on July 17, 2024, 03:58:52 PMQuote from: Banjo Destructo on July 17, 2024, 09:42:58 AMQuote from: Shalashashka on July 16, 2024, 10:30:08 PMI'm gonna be honest here, I've only ever played one human character in my entire time playing dnd. He was a swamp monk who talked like Dale Grible and he sadly didn't survive the one shot. Closest I've come since are a tiefling and an assimar. I just don't have any interest in playing what I already am in reality.
Your class makes you what you aren't in real life.
That just doesn't interest me, personally.
You're intitled to your opinion and preference, but for me, playing a human wizard that is casting fireballs and other spells isn't that different from playing a gnome or elf wizard, because you don't cast spells in real life.
Playing a human fighter, as much as I might practice with a sword in real life, allows me to pretend to do so many things I can't do in real life, fighting against monsters and looting treasure, performing deeds and feats that would be impossible in real life. .
I just don't understand the "be what I'm not in real life" when it comes to wanting to be a different species, because nothing you do in an RPG is what you do in real life, so being a human character doesn't seem like a "deal breaker" unless you just hate being a human in real life? I mean maybe you don't, that's just the only reason I can come up with off the top of my head.
I don't hate being human, I just don't find it interesting to play as one if I don't have to. Of course, this really only applies to games with non-human races. If I'm playing Cyberpunk or something, I make a character to match.
Quote from: jeff37923 on July 17, 2024, 07:51:00 PMQuote from: yosemitemike on July 17, 2024, 05:28:51 PMThere's also a ,mercifully small, group of players who insist on pushing their fetish into everything they do. Furry players have a bad reputation because a disproportionate number of them fall into this category. They don't just want to play an anthropomorphic animal character. They have a compulsion to shove their fur fetish into everything they do whether it's wanted or not. They will try to turn your game into furry porn. They can't help themselves. Not all furries are like this but there are enough of them that people have noticed a pattern and responded accordingly. That person who wants to play an anthropomorphic animal character might not be a problem but letting them into your game is taking a chance. It's a lot less trouble just to ban those races and be done with it. It sill eliminate some good players along with the weirdos but it will also cut out a lot of problems before they become problems.
This can be a particular problem with Traveller. Aslan and Vargr are viewed as merely lion-men and wolf-men by furry fanatics even though there are over four hundred pages of in game lore written and published for each race. Aslan and Vargr were originally created to give players the quintessential chance to play beings, "that think as well as humans but not like humans". Traveller Book 0 says flat out that, "Aliens should not be humans in funny rubber suits."
I don't really have a solid solution for this except for kicking out anyone who tries to exercise their furry fetish at the table and reserving allowing players to run an alien until I'm sure that they will take it seriously.
I have never encountered that problem in Traveller, maybe because all the players I've had to deal with were very old school and thus had absolutely no interest in furry fetishes. I could be wrong, but I don't think that Traveller attracts the kind of weirdo people that D&D 5e does.
Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 18, 2024, 09:19:08 AMQuote from: jeff37923 on July 17, 2024, 07:51:00 PMQuote from: yosemitemike on July 17, 2024, 05:28:51 PMThere's also a ,mercifully small, group of players who insist on pushing their fetish into everything they do. Furry players have a bad reputation because a disproportionate number of them fall into this category. They don't just want to play an anthropomorphic animal character. They have a compulsion to shove their fur fetish into everything they do whether it's wanted or not. They will try to turn your game into furry porn. They can't help themselves. Not all furries are like this but there are enough of them that people have noticed a pattern and responded accordingly. That person who wants to play an anthropomorphic animal character might not be a problem but letting them into your game is taking a chance. It's a lot less trouble just to ban those races and be done with it. It sill eliminate some good players along with the weirdos but it will also cut out a lot of problems before they become problems.
This can be a particular problem with Traveller. Aslan and Vargr are viewed as merely lion-men and wolf-men by furry fanatics even though there are over four hundred pages of in game lore written and published for each race. Aslan and Vargr were originally created to give players the quintessential chance to play beings, "that think as well as humans but not like humans". Traveller Book 0 says flat out that, "Aliens should not be humans in funny rubber suits."
I don't really have a solid solution for this except for kicking out anyone who tries to exercise their furry fetish at the table and reserving allowing players to run an alien until I'm sure that they will take it seriously.
I have never encountered that problem in Traveller, maybe because all the players I've had to deal with were very old school and thus had absolutely no interest in furry fetishes. I could be wrong, but I don't think that Traveller attracts the kind of weirdo people that D&D 5e does.
That's fair. I've mainly seen this from newer Traveller players than older Traveller players. I may also have a bias because I am an admin of the Traveller RPG group on Facebook and have had to ban furry fetishists who had posted porn in the group several times.
Quote from: LordBP on July 17, 2024, 06:30:15 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 11:26:39 AMQuote from: LordBP on July 17, 2024, 10:14:55 AMQuote from: Omega on July 16, 2024, 07:14:37 AMHumans, Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Half-Elves needed 1lb of food/day. Elves needed 1/3 lb, Halflings and Gnomes 1/2 lb. Water was a bit more complex based on temperature and activity.
The 1lb of food per day might work if they were sedentary, but if they are adventuring, then it would be more like 2 lbs or more per day.
Depends on the food.
A military MRE weighs about 0.58 pounds and provides about 1260 calories... or about 2200 calories per pound. The food storage is more efficient and spoilage is less, but the fundamental calories per gram of food doesn't change.
A 180 lb. man walking at 3 mph (the D&D standard over clear terrain) burns about 270 calories per hour... or about 2160 calories if they walked for eight hours straight.
I'd say the pound per day is rounded off and then averaged with less active days (dungeoneering presumes more like 300' per hour just half a mile of walking in an eight hour day).
If you needed to do a vast amount of overland travel (say a two week hike along a trade road) then, yeah it probably falls a bit short, but for typical D&D behavior of a day or two to a dungeon, a day or three of exploring it, and a few days back... yeah, a pound a day is probably "close enough."
Pemmican is around 3,500 calories per pound, grain around 1,600 per pound, and dried meat around 1,600 per pound. For pemmican, it's better used as a thickener to a stew as the tallow doesn't melt in your mouth like other fats will. You could use hardtack or a hard bread for the grain. I won't get into vegetables or fruit as they usually don't have dense calories per pound, so aren't really useful to take on a trip (pure sugar would be, but might be expensive).
For the walking example, the 8 hours of walking still leaves 16 hours of sitting (80 calories per hour), so the total would bump up to around 3,400 calories which is going to be a couple pounds of food.
Wearing gear while walking/hiding is going to use more calories also as most will have at least 40-50 pounds of gear on them (armor, weapons, backpack with food/water, etc).
Combat is the biggest unknown as it could burn much more calories depending on how much the party was in combat. If it's a lot, then the calories used per day might double or triple.
For the MREs, back when I was in the Army (a while back so they may have changed it), the allotment of MREs per person was 3 assuming no hot meals were provided. Everyone ate all of the MREs and all the pogey bait that we could smuggle into our packs and carry, so we were probably eating 3,500 to 4,000 calories per day.
Water is going to be the bigger issue than food as you need 1-3 gallons per day depending on temperature/humidity and exertion.
This is going to be between 8 and 24 pounds per person per day which is much more than food.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 07:28:22 AMThey have similar things like "add 1d8 feet to each long or high jump you make" or "proficient in stealth and squeeze as a small creature" or "advantage on perception checks" or similar that reflect innate racial traits in arguably more interesting ways than +2 Strength or Dexterity or Wisdom does.
I do not recall any race getting that in 5e?
Quote from: LordBP on July 18, 2024, 02:09:29 PMWater is going to be the bigger issue than food as you need 1-3 gallons per day depending on temperature/humidity and exertion.
This is going to be between 8 and 24 pounds per person per day which is much more than food.
This is true. Even a gallon is heavy.
This is why you used to have pack animals or porters with the party and left them camped outside when delving. Newer D&D and most any other RPG phased out hirelings and so the PCs are lugging alot more than they would otherwise.
Quote from: Omega on July 18, 2024, 06:07:43 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 07:28:22 AMThey have similar things like "add 1d8 feet to each long or high jump you make" or "proficient in stealth and squeeze as a small creature" or "advantage on perception checks" or similar that reflect innate racial traits in arguably more interesting ways than +2 Strength or Dexterity or Wisdom does.
I do not recall any race getting that in 5e?
The jump thing is from the rabbit race i dont remmeber where it was introduced though.
Quote from: Slambo on July 18, 2024, 07:47:16 PMQuote from: Omega on July 18, 2024, 06:07:43 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 07:28:22 AMThey have similar things like "add 1d8 feet to each long or high jump you make" or "proficient in stealth and squeeze as a small creature" or "advantage on perception checks" or similar that reflect innate racial traits in arguably more interesting ways than +2 Strength or Dexterity or Wisdom does.
I do not recall any race getting that in 5e?
The jump thing is from the rabbit race i dont remmeber where it was introduced though.
Harengon get a bonus action jump that's 5 times their proficiency bonus.
Quote from: Shalashashka on July 18, 2024, 10:01:25 PMQuote from: Slambo on July 18, 2024, 07:47:16 PMQuote from: Omega on July 18, 2024, 06:07:43 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 07:28:22 AMThey have similar things like "add 1d8 feet to each long or high jump you make" or "proficient in stealth and squeeze as a small creature" or "advantage on perception checks" or similar that reflect innate racial traits in arguably more interesting ways than +2 Strength or Dexterity or Wisdom does.
I do not recall any race getting that in 5e?
The jump thing is from the rabbit race i dont remmeber where it was introduced though.
Harengon get a bonus action jump that's 5 times their proficiency bonus.
Actually I was thinking of the Satyr.
Mirthful Leaps. Whenever you make a long jump or a high jump, you can roll a d8 and add the number rolled to the number of feet you cover, even when making a standing jump. This extra distance costs movement as normal. ~ Monsters of the Multiverse, p. 29.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 17, 2024, 05:52:07 PMBoth of your reasons are why I have some randomness options in my games--even though the players main character is pretty much whatever they want. I want some interesting races. I want some cat people or wolf people or whatever. However, I've found that a player that is perfectly OK with playing a random human will also not exhibit any of those annoying behaviors you mention. It's a filter that lets me flirt with what would otherwise be risky, without really risking very much. Of course, the other, greater filter is only playing with your friends or people closely vetted.
There's a positive side to this, not just a filter. Generally, a person willing to play the random human will probably do a pretty good job with any of the other options.
I've seen that to a limited extent in the couple of WFRP campaigns I got to play in. In 4th edition at least, you get an XP bonus at character creation if you choose to random roll certain elements of your character (one of which is race). In general, I think there's a psychological phenomenon where randomization of elements of the character produce better roleplaying, because the player gets handed elements they didn't plan on and are forced to think about what kind of person they're building in more detail.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 11:10:57 PMQuote from: Shalashashka on July 18, 2024, 10:01:25 PMQuote from: Slambo on July 18, 2024, 07:47:16 PMQuote from: Omega on July 18, 2024, 06:07:43 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 07:28:22 AMThey have similar things like "add 1d8 feet to each long or high jump you make" or "proficient in stealth and squeeze as a small creature" or "advantage on perception checks" or similar that reflect innate racial traits in arguably more interesting ways than +2 Strength or Dexterity or Wisdom does.
I do not recall any race getting that in 5e?
The jump thing is from the rabbit race i dont remmeber where it was introduced though.
Harengon get a bonus action jump that's 5 times their proficiency bonus.
Actually I was thinking of the Satyr.
Mirthful Leaps. Whenever you make a long jump or a high jump, you can roll a d8 and add the number rolled to the number of feet you cover, even when making a standing jump. This extra distance costs movement as normal. ~ Monsters of the Multiverse, p. 29.
ahhh. Totally misread the initial comment. Thought you had meant ALL not-human races got some sort of blanket bonus ability.
Quote from: Omega on July 19, 2024, 06:42:55 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 11:10:57 PMQuote from: Shalashashka on July 18, 2024, 10:01:25 PMQuote from: Slambo on July 18, 2024, 07:47:16 PMQuote from: Omega on July 18, 2024, 06:07:43 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 18, 2024, 07:28:22 AMThey have similar things like "add 1d8 feet to each long or high jump you make" or "proficient in stealth and squeeze as a small creature" or "advantage on perception checks" or similar that reflect innate racial traits in arguably more interesting ways than +2 Strength or Dexterity or Wisdom does.
I do not recall any race getting that in 5e?
The jump thing is from the rabbit race i dont remmeber where it was introduced though.
Harengon get a bonus action jump that's 5 times their proficiency bonus.
Actually I was thinking of the Satyr.
Mirthful Leaps. Whenever you make a long jump or a high jump, you can roll a d8 and add the number rolled to the number of feet you cover, even when making a standing jump. This extra distance costs movement as normal. ~ Monsters of the Multiverse, p. 29.
ahhh. Totally misread the initial comment. Thought you had meant ALL not-human races got some sort of blanket bonus ability.
Nah... just that they switched from +2 Strength to specific traits that are basically always useful regardless of class choice.
One of the biggest issues that honestly plagued all the WotC editions was that the racial ability bonuses really made certain combos of race and class really sub-optimal... basically you had to pay a "concept tax" if you wanted to play something like a Dwarf Rogue or a Half-Orc Sorcerer.
Even the 4E and 5E switch to only racial bonuses without penalties didn't really help... Humans could get +2 to whichever key stat they wanted, but if you wanted to play an Elf Wizard you'd actually start 2 points behind the human and never catch up (the Eladrin; basically the High Elves in 4E; were the ones who got the racial Intelligence bonus).
I'm not sure when the idea hit the D&D folks, but for me and my project it was mainly realizing that Dwarves in 4E still made great fighters despite not getting a Strength bump (technically putting them behind a human or dragonborn) because their Dwarven Resilience (letting them use their Second Wind as a minor action instead of a standard action) and Stand Your Ground (reducing the effects of forced movement and getting a saving throw to avoid being knocked prone) actually proved as or more valuable to Fighters (who took more hits than the rest of the party and needed positioning to best protect their allies) than a +2 to their Strength score would (basically +1 to hit and damage).
Regardless... traits like "double your lifting and carrying" definitely gives those races superior strength to other characters, but does so in a way where its never a wasted thing. Previously +2 Strength for someone who didn't need Strength probably just means its a 10 instead of an 8 (if you were using an array)... just human average.
By contrast, doubling lift and carry means that 8 is effectively a 16 for lifting and carrying... well above human average. Even a wizard who uses Strength as a dump stat will see benefit from that and a character with Strength of the focus could be lifting like they had a 40 Strength.
The same goes for the jump bonus since that +1d8 applies to even standing vertical jumps (normally half of "3 + your Strength modifier") which is just 1' for a Strength 8 character and you can reach 1.5 times your height... so a 5' human could reach 8.5' with their hands with a jump like that.
By contrast, even a slightly below average roll for a weakling bumps that to 5' (you can now easily grab that ledge 10' up) and for a strong PC, your feet could clear 12' on a maximum roll (and if you're 5' 6" or more you could grab a ledge 20' up with enough attempts).
Now, personally, I don't like 5e's over-reliance on dice for its special traits... +1d8 sounds great until you roll that 1 when you needed a 2 or better to clear the gap... but in terms of the concept of races making their distinctions via specific traits instead of just some rather trivial numbers (+/-5% relative to other PCs) is one I can whole-heartedly.
The only mistake I think they really made with that was in leaving the modifiers in at all vs. adjusting the math slightly to the unmodified dice results... that's an unnecessary bit of complication that exists mostly out of "tradition" at this point.
just play real life and stop crying
Quote from: DUCATISLO on July 21, 2024, 09:35:13 AMjust play real life and stop crying
Real life isnt very realistic.
Quote from: DUCATISLO on July 21, 2024, 09:35:13 AMjust play real life and stop crying
Now where's the fun in that?
With the new changes to the race system in 6e. What actually does a human character have going for it?
At least with 5e you could either get +1s across the board, which I prefered. Or a +1/+2 and a feat.
Quote from: Omega on July 23, 2024, 05:35:31 AMWith the new changes to the race system in 6e. What actually does a human character have going for it?
At least with 5e you could either get +1s across the board, which I prefered. Or a +1/+2 and a feat.
Humans, at least according to the playtest material for the thing (which apparently has not changed) gets...
Resourceful. You gain Inspiration whenever you finish a Long Rest.
Skillful. You gain Proficiency in one Skill of your choice.
Versatile. You gain the Skilled Feat or another 1st-level Feat of your choice.
The Skilled feat gives you proficiency in three more skills... so the default human would have proficiency in any four skills of choice (or could take something like Magic Initiate and snag a couple cantrips and a 1/day spell).
By contrast a Dwarf gets...
Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
Dwarven Resilience. You have Resistance to Poison Damage. You also have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Poisoned Condition on yourself.
Dwarven Toughness. Your Hit Point Maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level.
Forge Wise. Your divine creator gave you an uncanny affinity for working with stone or metal. You gain Tool Proficiency with two of the following options of your choice: Jeweler's Tools, Mason's Tools, Smith's Tools, or Tinker's Tools.
Stonecunning. As a Bonus Action, you gain Tremorsense with a range of 60 feet for 10 minutes. You must be on a stone surface or touching such a surface to use this Tremorsense. The stone can be natural or worked. You can use this Bonus Action a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.
My preference has always been that humans are the baseline race, with no special advantages or disadvantages. The other races then have plusses and minuses that make them different but equivalent in power.
Quote from: Mishihari on July 23, 2024, 01:05:20 PMMy preference has always been that humans are the baseline race, with no special advantages or disadvantages. The other races then have plusses and minuses that make them different but equivalent in power.
I mean, technically, if you do give "bonuses" to humans, you can think of that as the baseline, and any other races that don't get the bonuses that humans get can count that as a "minus"
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on July 23, 2024, 01:41:06 PMQuote from: Mishihari on July 23, 2024, 01:05:20 PMMy preference has always been that humans are the baseline race, with no special advantages or disadvantages. The other races then have plusses and minuses that make them different but equivalent in power.
I mean, technically, if you do give "bonuses" to humans, you can think of that as the baseline, and any other races that don't get the bonuses that humans get can count that as a "minus"
Well, yes, that does come out the same. But when I'm writing the rest of the rules I like to be able to use humans as baseline for performance -- it makes it simpler and easier for me to think about -- and then just remember that other races will be slightly better or worse than that. At the end of the day you get to the same place mathwise either way, but I find it simpler to think about, personally, hence quicker in play, to do it my way.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 23, 2024, 12:46:45 PMQuote from: Omega on July 23, 2024, 05:35:31 AMWith the new changes to the race system in 6e. What actually does a human character have going for it?
At least with 5e you could either get +1s across the board, which I prefered. Or a +1/+2 and a feat.
Humans, at least according to the playtest material for the thing (which apparently has not changed) gets...
Resourceful. You gain Inspiration whenever you finish a Long Rest.
Versatile. You gain the Skilled Feat or another 1st-level Feat of your choice.
Isnt Fake 5e supposed to be making getting inspiration either very easy now or practically automatic?
Does not every class or background now grant a free feat at level 1?
So humans get 2 feats at start (or 3 more skills)?
And this is all supposedly backwards compatible. wotc could not tell the truth if they tried.
Quote from: Omega on July 24, 2024, 09:10:53 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on July 23, 2024, 12:46:45 PMQuote from: Omega on July 23, 2024, 05:35:31 AMWith the new changes to the race system in 6e. What actually does a human character have going for it?
At least with 5e you could either get +1s across the board, which I prefered. Or a +1/+2 and a feat.
Humans, at least according to the playtest material for the thing (which apparently has not changed) gets...
Resourceful. You gain Inspiration whenever you finish a Long Rest.
Versatile. You gain the Skilled Feat or another 1st-level Feat of your choice.
Isnt Fake 5e supposed to be making getting inspiration either very easy now or practically automatic?
Does not every class or background now grant a free feat at level 1?
So humans get 2 feats at start (or 3 more skills)?
And this is all supposedly backwards compatible. wotc could not tell the truth if they tried.
The Variant Human essentially became the standard human for the 2024 version.
To also be fair, most of the 2014 backgrounds provided something akin to a non-combat feat as a special trait. Urchin for example had...
CITY SECRETS You know the secret patterns and flow to cities and can find passages through the urban sprawl that others would miss. When you are not in combat, you (and companions you lead) can travel between any two locations in the city twice as fast as your speed would normally allow.The Noble Knight Background gave you three non-combat retainers. Soldier let you requisition supplies and have other soldiers follow your orders. Depending on the campaign the 2014 Background features are arguably better than the "pick a 1st level feat" option.
Note: I'm not saying its good... I don't think even 2014 D&D was good (a good DM could, at best, make it mediocre), I'm just saying I don't think its going to be THAT far out of line with the previous 5e stuff that you couldn't use them together. 5e's game balance in general is so out of whack that the new material isn't going to sway the average that much.
As far as previous adventures and the Monster Manuals? Yeah, those are definitely close enough you could use them with the 2024 stuff and not even notice.
Quote from: ForgottenF on July 12, 2024, 07:30:27 AMRunning 3e/4e/5e/Pathfinder or any similar game and then complaining about having a rainbow kids club party is like standing in the rain and complaining that you got wet.
I am playing in a face to face Pathfinder 2e game at the moment. To be honest, if it were not for the social contact of a face to face game, I wouldn't play. Our group is all non-humans because as you said - why would you do anything else.
Its always a bit pathetic seeing people in Reddit spiut off that "5e cant do low magic" or "5e can not do human or X race only campaigns."
Its like there is no imagination in some of these fuckwits and they drown out the people who prove them wrong.
Quote from: Omega on August 02, 2024, 01:10:17 AMIts always a bit pathetic seeing people in Reddit spiut off that "5e cant do low magic" or "5e can not do human or X race only campaigns."
Its like there is no imagination in some of these fuckwits and they drown out the people who prove them wrong.
I mean, human-only is easy. You just ban every other player race. I don't think any edition of D&D does low magic without a lot of homebrewing, but that subject would probably need its own thread.
Yeah, this new human baseline sounds like typical WotC power inflation. What before in TSR was humans could be any class and hit level 10+ in any class became universalized to every race in 3e there on from WotC. So 5e is again race can be any class and they all can go up to lvl 20.
Similarly the Fighter class has been routinely giving away the farm bit by bit. Granted it occurred under TSR a bit, but it really picked up speed under WotC and people were asking "What happened?" surprised that the obvious result came about. And looking at the 5e Fighter Multiclass rules was eye-roll inducing, the class basically hands over everything in a level or two.
In my opinion it is a human habit with design to get into a) power creep, and b) mission creep (add more responsibilities until it implodes). But WotC does tend to keep that full throttle attitude, like those delirious hookers and blow days of 1990s Magic: the Gathering CCG big-time money, where they just floor it until the edition breaks. So I have zero interest in this D&D 5.5e or 6e or whatever. I can recognize patterns, and WotC has been consistent here, now with added aging Hasbro Corporate band wagoning and design by committee.
The game reached apotheosis in 2e for me so all of this is mere bemused amusement. I did like 5e, I still kinda do; great chassis. But I'm not on an edition treadmill and I expect crap product from the 2015--2025 Lead Age (a.k.a. Woke Era). Lead Age because lead is a soft, heavy metal with a rainbow sheen to its dull luster, whose consumption makes you violent and stupid. It's a write-off pop cultural decade, as the really good stuff is buried in the independent backwaters.
I'll leave my 2c here.
I like both "all human" and "all cosplay" campaigns. Having a PC play an elf like something non-human is very rare.
https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/05/all-elves-are-half-elves.html
Quote from: Omega on August 02, 2024, 01:10:17 AMIts always a bit pathetic seeing people in Reddit spiut off that "5e cant do low magic" or "5e can not do human or X race only campaigns."
Its like there is no imagination in some of these fuckwits and they drown out the people who prove them wrong.
5e can do both but it requires some effort. More than half the classes are magic and the ones that arent have magic subclasses.
The PHB has a huge list of spells, the chapter is much bigger than combat, etc. You have like 500+ spells and barely 50 ordinary weapons.
Many monsters are only harmed by magic. Etc etc.
D&D is probably the most magic-heavy RPG except for maybe ars magika... I might still try, but I'd certainly consider Mythras/BRP, GURPS, Pendragon, etc.
EDIT: come to think of it, I'm planning an all-human, low-magic campaign, and I'll probably use OSRish rules because that is what I like anyway.
Why not both.
Sometimes I can't to play or run an all human party. Sometimes the same for a mix of races.
More often than not the second. I live. Work and exist as a human 24/7/365 days of the year. Why in a fantasy RPG that has non-human options would I want to escape the mundane day to day to play myself.
If my only choice is to play in an all human campaign and the GM is good at running the game I will be the first in line as well.
Why not enjoy the entire buffet table rather than one end of it.
Quote from: ForgottenF on August 02, 2024, 09:26:28 AMI mean, human-only is easy. You just ban every other player race. I don't think any edition of D&D does low magic without a lot of homebrewing, but that subject would probably need its own thread.
You do not need any homebrewing at all and never have to run a low or no magic campaign.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 03, 2024, 01:04:53 PMThe PHB has a huge list of spells, the chapter is much bigger than combat, etc. You have like 500+ spells and barely 50 ordinary weapons.
Many monsters are only harmed by magic. Etc etc.
Part of that problem with 5e is that they split several spells into their component parts, and they waste alot of ink repeating themselves over and over trying to idiot-proof the game. Tasha's Cauldron actually wastes two whole pages worth of print just repeating the same warning or note over and over and over and over.
But you can ditch all the spells and magic subclasses and run a no-magic setting with the fighter and thief.
As for monsters and magic. You just dont use them. Its really that simple. You can run whole campaigns in regular D&D and never see a monster once because all the problems are people ones. And any monsters you use, just stick to the ones that arent weapon immune. Its a LOW or NO magic campaign. Why do people keep forgetting that when selecting monsters?
Quote from: Abraxus on August 03, 2024, 01:09:38 PMWhy not both.
Why not enjoy the entire buffet table rather than one end of it.
Because to some village idiots on this forum playing anything other than baseline is BAD and WRONG and VERBOTEN! Huh? Now what other group pulls that from a different angle?
Quote from: Omega on August 04, 2024, 04:21:25 PMQuote from: Eric Diaz on August 03, 2024, 01:04:53 PMThe PHB has a huge list of spells, the chapter is much bigger than combat, etc. You have like 500+ spells and barely 50 ordinary weapons.
Many monsters are only harmed by magic. Etc etc.
Part of that problem with 5e is that they split several spells into their component parts, and they waste alot of ink repeating themselves over and over trying to idiot-proof the game. Tasha's Cauldron actually wastes two whole pages worth of print just repeating the same warning or note over and over and over and over.
But you can ditch all the spells and magic subclasses and run a no-magic setting with the fighter and thief.
As for monsters and magic. You just dont use them. Its really that simple. You can run whole campaigns in regular D&D and never see a monster once because all the problems are people ones. And any monsters you use, just stick to the ones that arent weapon immune. Its a LOW or NO magic campaign. Why do people keep forgetting that when selecting monsters?
It is doable, but if you are simply more than half of the material in the rule books you're carrying, it is harder to see the point.
Not much of an issue if you play only, just copy-paste the SRD down to one third (or less) of the original size.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 04, 2024, 06:40:47 PMt is doable, but if you are simply more than half of the material in the rule books you're carrying, it is harder to see the point.
The point is to use D&D for what it was meant for. To do about anything. When they did the Conan and Red Sonja modules they pared the allowable races down to just Human and disallowed about every class except the Fighter, Thief and Assassin.
The "Historical" line for 2e did the same. Theres been quote a few examples actually.