Quote from: Pat on October 06, 2021, 01:20:14 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 12:24:37 PM
Okay, you sold me, where can I find this?

https://www.enworld.org/threads/tales-of-wyre.58227/

It starts off slow, a DM asking the board some questions. But it quickly develops into a true story hour. It gets better and better as it goes along. Flip to page 11 if you prefer PDFs. There are also a number of secondary threads where Sepulchave posts stat blocks, expansions and fixes for the epic spellcasting system, and so on; but they're not necessary.

Thanks Pat for the link. It's about time I reread. If you're like me be prepared to sink a lot of time in to reading Seps stuff. Seps story hour for me was like Critical Role is for a lot of 5e players.... .... ... except Seps is good LOL. Folks did fanart even.

Also, If you like good 1e/2e stuff read this: http://www.peldor.com/

I've spent loads of hours reading this too. This guy places his game in Greyhawk (the best of all) and goes through a lot of the classic adventures. Actually starts here

http://www.peldor.com/epic_1_index.html

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 05, 2021, 03:55:10 PM
Having 6 foot tall dwarves that do not speak dwarvish and have Constitution 8 is also fine by me... probably not something I'd allow at my table without very convincing justification, but "choose your language, ability scores and height according to your race and background" should be okay IMO. It DOES sound a bit ludicrous, I'll admit.

EDIT: in other words, it is mostly cosplay at this point:
https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/06/fantasy-races-stereotypes-vs-cosplay.html

Planescape beat 5.5e to it decades ago with evil angels and good demons. Spelljammer had some role reversals as well.
But TSR played around with this idea well before that and as mentioned in an older thread. BECMI had a series of expansions for playing typically monster races. 2e had one as well. Theres been modules and adventures exploring this too.

Nothing new.

But WOTC's spin on it is hellbound to be stupid somehow. From what I've been seeing so far they are trying for a "personalize it" sort of open ended system, or lack of. But the way they are going at it feels so off kilter.

Quote from: jhkim on October 06, 2021, 01:17:35 PM
On the other hand, there are a lot of ostensibly Christian stories that I find very un-Christian. I mentioned The Omen previously, which tried to make a father killing his adopted toddler as the morally good action. A common story I have a big problem with is a character who sells their soul to the devil to do something that they thinks is good - and then there needs to be some sort of action to fight or break the contract -- or even possibly the person gets sent to Hell. To me, that fundamentally opposes the power of God and the forgiveness of Jesus.

God has never asked a Father to kill his Son in the whole of the Bible?

You need to study up a bit more on your theology.

Quote from: Shasarak on October 06, 2021, 04:33:05 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 06, 2021, 01:17:35 PM
On the other hand, there are a lot of ostensibly Christian stories that I find very un-Christian. I mentioned The Omen previously, which tried to make a father killing his adopted toddler as the morally good action. A common story I have a big problem with is a character who sells their soul to the devil to do something that they thinks is good - and then there needs to be some sort of action to fight or break the contract -- or even possibly the person gets sent to Hell. To me, that fundamentally opposes the power of God and the forgiveness of Jesus.

God has never asked a Father to kill his Son in the whole of the Bible?

You need to study up a bit more on your theology.

But the point of the Abraham-Isaac story is that God didn't allow it to actually happen. It would be a very different story and theology if Isaac was actually sacrificed and that was held up as a good act.

Quote from: jhkim on October 06, 2021, 04:56:25 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on October 06, 2021, 04:33:05 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 06, 2021, 01:17:35 PM
On the other hand, there are a lot of ostensibly Christian stories that I find very un-Christian. I mentioned The Omen previously, which tried to make a father killing his adopted toddler as the morally good action. A common story I have a big problem with is a character who sells their soul to the devil to do something that they thinks is good - and then there needs to be some sort of action to fight or break the contract -- or even possibly the person gets sent to Hell. To me, that fundamentally opposes the power of God and the forgiveness of Jesus.

God has never asked a Father to kill his Son in the whole of the Bible?

You need to study up a bit more on your theology.

But the point of the Abraham-Isaac story is that God didn't allow it to actually happen. It would be a very different story and theology if Isaac was actually sacrificed and that was held up as a good act.

You are correct on the story of Abraham-Isaac.

You are also correct in the previous examples you give as being fundamentally un-Christian.

They are examples of subversive / deconstructionist takes on Christian themes and theology.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 05, 2021, 03:55:10 PM
Here are some 5.5e changes:

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/sage-advice/creature-evolutions

So... what are they doing to actually make the game better? Because everything they talk about here is meaningless piffle, such as minor formatting changes to stat blocks. That's not exactly my idea of an awe-inspiring "evolution" in game design.

Quote from: Horace on October 06, 2021, 07:09:49 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 05, 2021, 03:55:10 PM
Here are some 5.5e changes:

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/sage-advice/creature-evolutions

So... what are they doing to actually make the game better? Because everything they talk about here is meaningless piffle, such as minor formatting changes to stat blocks. That's not exactly my idea of an awe-inspiring "evolution" in game design.

"Backwards-Compatible " = Pretty much the same game, probably rules clarifications and rewordings.

Slapping a "50th Anniversary" sticker and some shiny on the cover is gonna sell books, and they know it. See.....pretty much anything with an Anniversary Edition.
Meh.

Quote from: jhkim on October 06, 2021, 04:56:25 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on October 06, 2021, 04:33:05 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 06, 2021, 01:17:35 PM
On the other hand, there are a lot of ostensibly Christian stories that I find very un-Christian. I mentioned The Omen previously, which tried to make a father killing his adopted toddler as the morally good action. A common story I have a big problem with is a character who sells their soul to the devil to do something that they thinks is good - and then there needs to be some sort of action to fight or break the contract -- or even possibly the person gets sent to Hell. To me, that fundamentally opposes the power of God and the forgiveness of Jesus.

God has never asked a Father to kill his Son in the whole of the Bible?

You need to study up a bit more on your theology.

But the point of the Abraham-Isaac story is that God didn't allow it to actually happen. It would be a very different story and theology if Isaac was actually sacrificed and that was held up as a good act.

And in The Omen God also did not allow it to happen.

So which bit was not Christian again?

There are no good demons.  That's why they're called demons.  They are the embodiment or chaotic evil.

I guess this paragraph in the 5E Player's Handbook won't survive the revision:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Too bad, because it's one of the most sensible things in the book.

My take is this: Motivational ambiguity is a really crap concept in a Bad Guy. I appreciate absolutes, certainties. I appreciate,  for example, the certainty that a chaotic evil demon is really only here to cause as much bedlam as possible, and the certainty that a lawful evil devil has some sort of evil machinations that cannot be trusted to be anything other than evil.


I'm really getting fed up with this moral relativism bullshit.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 06, 2021, 01:21:29 PM

QuoteNew character races don't have the Ability Score Increase trait that Player's Handbook races have. The new races instead rely on a special character-creation rule that allows a character to increase one ability score by 2 and another score by 1 or to increase three different ability scores by 1. The lack of the Ability Score Increase trait helps make your choice of race and your choice of class independent from each other, broadening the types of characters we're likely to see at the game table.

But why? Why don't these races use the same ASI system everyone else does? This is retarded beyond belief. It's not like everyone is going to pick the same ASI options; they're going to pick what strengthens their character. I need a drink.

As of Tasha's, optionally every character can customise their ability score increases; this announcement is making that option the default for new races. I'd expect it to become canon for all races in a 5.5:

Quote... This increase doesn't apply to every dwarf, just to dwarf adventurers, and it exists to reinforce an archetype. That reinforcement is appropriate if you want to lean into the archetype, but it's unhelpful if your character doesn't conform to the archetype.

If you'd like your character to follow their own path, you may ignore your Ability Score Increase trait and assign ability score increases tailored to your character. Here's how to do it: ...

This, to me, is backwards - in my campaigns the increase does apply to every dwarf, and part of the point of playing against archetype ought to be having to overcome difficulty. This common idea that race absolutely dictates class feels to me like another bit of white room theorising and over-optimisation[1], but in practice, many players felt compelled to pick the race that matched their class, or the classes to match their race. The PHB even encouraged this, if not as explicitly as some earlier versions: every class' description lists three example characters, and all of them are playing to their strengths.

Then again, I strongly prefer a humanocentric world, which isn't what we see in the popular conception of D&D these days, and the most RPG-active of my kids mocks me for it.

[1] Unless, of course, you're playing B/X-type race-as-class, in which case I prefer ACKS or similar games that allow races to have more than one class.

Quote from: Horace on October 06, 2021, 09:25:36 PM
I guess this paragraph in the 5E Player's Handbook won't survive the revision:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Too bad, because it's one of the most sensible things in the book.

That is EXACTLY the point I was making regarding outsiders, especially outer planes natives like devils, angels, etc.

D&D's cosmology involves the outer planes, which are strongly aligned. There are two ways to justify them. One, is that they're the primal source from whence mortals acquire their alignments. The outer planes predate the Prime, and the Prime is just a mix of the various traits the upper and lower realms embody. That's the more traditional perspective, and at least somewhat aligns with various religious beliefs. The more modern perspective inverts that, and says that the outer planes are a reflection of the Prime. They mirror human (and other being's) beliefs, and postdate the emergence of religious thought.

What are angels and devils? They're strongly aligned beings from the outer planes. The most logical supposition is they're created in the same way as the planes in which they live. They may have a motive spark or other quality the more passive firmament that surrounds them lacks, but aside from that they're essentially made of the same stuff. So in the two interpretations, they're either eternal and predate the Prime races, or they're manifestations of mortal ideals and myths.

Let's run with the latter interpretation: That gods, little gods, and the planes they live on are created by the belief of mortals. That they rise and wane in proportion to the scope and ferocity of their support on the Prime.

What does that imply about the nature of devils and angels? It means a devil is the embodiment of a set of mortal beliefs about order and evil. A devil may lack the capacity to go against their immanent nature, and be unable to be anything other than a devil. But if the motive spark is sufficiently malleable, a devil may have some degree of moral independence, and be able to question their very nature. But what happens if that leads them to abrogate their own essence, rejecting their core principles, and embracing the light?

Well, I see two options. One, it's an inherent contradiction, and not allowed by their devilish nature. They revert back to the morphic stuff they're composed of, and simply cease to exist. Alternatively, their inner change causes an outer change that reflects the new belief system they have started to embody. In this case, a devil who turns good become an angel, or some analogous entity from the cultural matrix that created them. This doesn't have to be an instant process. It may be long and gradual, involve slippage and backsliding, and could include physical as well as existential agony. But as their inner nature changes, so does their outer nature, and they eventually become a new type of akashic being.

Quote from: Horace on October 06, 2021, 09:25:36 PM
I guess this paragraph in the 5E Player's Handbook won't survive the revision:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Too bad, because it's one of the most sensible things in the book.

EXACTLY. Devils & Demons are evil, Angels are good. If they stop being their alignment, they become something else completely.