People seem to think that 4e introduced reflavoring/reskinning monsters, spells, and other effects to D&D.  Didn't this exist in every single version of D&D ever?

For instance, I played a blue wizard in Pathfinder.  He wore blue robes and a blue wizard's hat.  When he cast fireball, the flames were blue.  When he cast haste, glowing blue rings surrounded everyone's feet.  When he cast black tentacles, ethereal blue tentacles grappled everyone.  When he cast fly, translucent blue dragon wings grew from his back.

There's nothing stopping you from saying your wizard momentarily turns into a dragon when he casts burning hands and breathes flames or that he's throwing daggers at people when he casts magic missile.  The only difference between 3e and 4e is that 4e required everyone to reskin powers to alleviate the cognitive dissonance of knocking an ooze prone.

I think the generic-ness of the oD&D classes was the original push to re-flavor.

"You are a fighter.  Are you a barbarian, a knight, a soldier, an archer...?"

I think it really existed in every RPG ever - it's called "Imagination" .

And I am actually serious - in pretty much every RPG, you can do your own stuff by changing the "visuals" of the By - The - Book stuff.

Yeah; I've had this argument/discussion before about oh boo hoo AD&D doesn't have tumbling or you can't be cinematic with OD&D (seriously, people who think pen and paper RPGs where hours can constitute 30 seconds to one minute of time in the game universe can somehow be "cinematic" need to have their heads examined).

"What's so heroic about walking over there and stabbing him?  In [LATER EDITION AND BY EXTENSION BETTER EDITION] I can do [FEAT] and it is so much cooler!"

If someone playing a fighter in AD&D tells me "I charge across the room, kick the chair halfway between me and the orc so when it hits him the wind will be out of his sails and I can hit him easier"...well, guess what, that works for me!  Charge adds +2 to-hit for the attacker - and the player just justified it!  A "blue wizard"?  That's awesome!  I hope somebody does that at the table one day!

Imagination.  It's what's for breakfast.

Quote from: misterguignol;514305I think the generic-ness of the oD&D classes was the original push to re-flavor.

"You are a fighter.  Are you a barbarian, a knight, a soldier, an archer...?"

Hm. Do you mean the very first role playing game was the very first push to re-skin and play worlds of your imagination? Could it be there is more to your statement than meets the eye... ? /sarcasm

Quote from: B.T.;514304People seem to think that 4e introduced reflavoring/reskinning monsters, spells, and other effects to D&D.  Didn't this exist in every single version of D&D ever?

For instance, I played a blue wizard in Pathfinder.  He wore blue robes and a blue wizard's hat.  When he cast fireball, the flames were blue.  When he cast haste, glowing blue rings surrounded everyone's feet.  When he cast black tentacles, ethereal blue tentacles grappled everyone.  When he cast fly, translucent blue dragon wings grew from his back.

There's nothing stopping you from saying your wizard momentarily turns into a dragon when he casts burning hands and breathes flames or that he's throwing daggers at people when he casts magic missile.  The only difference between 3e and 4e is that 4e required everyone to reskin powers to alleviate the cognitive dissonance of knocking an ooze prone.

Complete agreement. One of my MU's magic missiles are screaming fantomatic skulls made of ash, for instance (AD&D First Ed).

Quote from: thedungeondelver;514319If someone playing a fighter in AD&D tells me "I charge across the room, kick the chair halfway between me and the orc so when it hits him the wind will be out of his sails and I can hit him easier"...well, guess what, that works for me!  Charge adds +2 to-hit for the attacker - and the player just justified it!  A "blue wizard"?  That's awesome!  I hope somebody does that at the table one day!

Imagination.  It's what's for breakfast.

Ditto.

Nothing to add here except a big giant AMEN.

Sometimes (TSR-era D&D in particular), I feel not having explicit subsystems to pull some crazy stunt, is an invitation to fast and loose on-the-spot houseruling, a system that rewards both players and GMs for thinking quick on their feet. And I like it.

Quote from: B.T.;514304People seem to think that 4e introduced reflavoring/reskinning monsters, spells, and other effects to D&D.  Didn't this exist in every single version of D&D ever?

I agree with you, though IME reflavoring/reskinning monsters, spells, and other effects was more prominent in 1e, 2e and 4e. It was possible in 3e, but seemed less prominent given the way the system tried to model everything mechanically.

Maybe the people you refer to are just claiming that 4e returned it to prominence. Or maybe the claim is made by D&D players that are only familiar with 3e and 4e.

It is sad when players believe that pre-chosen stuff from some list is so much cooler than they are.

Choosing how you flavour your character is not the same as reskinning.

My hunch was that reskinning first became a thing with 3E with char  op when people wanted to know how to build an effective character that would work in play and that people would tell  them to take this feat, or this prestige class and ignore what it says it's supposed to be about and just focus on how it plays.  4E just seems to have given this practice the designers nod of approval.

You don't need to reskin anything in OD&D.  If you want your fighter to be a swashbuckler then you say that he is, and he is.  It's just one of the many possible things a fighter can be.

Reskinning requires the concepts of fluff and crunch as two separate things.

Edit: I'm sure however that reskinning has been done throughout the history of the hobby.  For some reason however, it is now being held up as a virtue rather than a necessary evil.

When I gave an NPC wizard in 2E and Iceball,  rather than a Fireball spell, and then the player learnt it from his spellbook, I was not reskinning or reflavouring, I was writing a houseruled spell based on an extrapolation from an existing spell.  The difference being all logical extrapolations that might follow, and the player might take advantage off, based on the spell being cold rather than fire.  The player can not set things on fire with his iceball spell.


Reskinning is when you have two players both playing fighters who are role-played as knights.  

Player 1 buys the new splatbook  because he knows there is a new Knight Defender advanced class that would be perfect for his character.  He reads the fluff piece and takes the class, eager to see how it helps him develop and role-play his character.

Player 2 Is wiser and has more system mastery, he takes one look at the Knight Defender and sees it contains nothing but a selection of not particularly good bland combat powers.  It does nothing in particular to reinforce his character's  Knightliness.  So he instead takes the Wandering Murderer Advanced class, which is also nothing but bland fighter powers, but much better powers, and reskins it as the Knight Commander class.  He also decides to reflavour the powers in some kind of knightly way.

Note: Player 2 is not necessarily a total munchkin.  If the Knight Defender has contained any rules that were particularly appropriate to his Knight he may have taken the class even if it was sub-optimal.  But having such rules would interfere with the separation between fluff and cruch.

I'm suffering from a bout of insomnia, so I figured I would reskin a wizard into a rogue.

Magic missile becomes a throwing dagger that always hits.  Ventriloquism, expeditious retreat, jump, invisibility, spider climb work as-is.  Disguise self involves a disguise kit and a cockney accent.  Feather fall uses a cloak to slow your descent.  Glitterdust is a flashbang.  Web is a really good tanglefoot bag.  Blur is you dodging really fast.  Fireball is potent alchemist's fire.  Hold person and slow are blowguns with poisoned darts.  Various mind-affecting spells are just really good uses of the Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate skills.

Obviously, this doesn't work with every spell, particularly not when dealing with higher-level effects, but you could get a fair distance with reskinning everything.

Quote from: B.T.;514381I'm suffering from a bout of insomnia, so I figured I would reskin a wizard into a rogue.

Magic missile becomes a throwing dagger that always hits.  Ventriloquism, expeditious retreat, jump, invisibility, spider climb work as-is.  Disguise self involves a disguise kit and a cockney accent.  Feather fall uses a cloak to slow your descent.  Glitterdust is a flashbang.  Web is a really good tanglefoot bag.  Blur is you dodging really fast.  Fireball is potent alchemist's fire.  Hold person and slow are blowguns with poisoned darts.  Various mind-affecting spells are just really good uses of the Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate skills.

Obviously, this doesn't work with every spell, particularly not when dealing with higher-level effects, but you could get a fair distance with reskinning everything.

This gives rogues a certain amount of tricks they can do per day.  You've just recreated 4E!

Can I cast dispel magic on you while you're spider climbing and make  you fall?

Quote from: B.T.;514381I'm suffering from a bout of insomnia, so I figured I would reskin a wizard into a rogue.

Magic missile becomes a throwing dagger that always hits.  Ventriloquism, expeditious retreat, jump, invisibility, spider climb work as-is.  Disguise self involves a disguise kit and a cockney accent.  Feather fall uses a cloak to slow your descent.  Glitterdust is a flashbang.  Web is a really good tanglefoot bag.  Blur is you dodging really fast.  Fireball is potent alchemist's fire.  Hold person and slow are blowguns with poisoned darts.  Various mind-affecting spells are just really good uses of the Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate skills.

Obviously, this doesn't work with every spell, particularly not when dealing with higher-level effects, but you could get a fair distance with reskinning everything.

1) That's what racism gets you!

2) That is a good idea - perhaps limit his spell list, but give him some Thief powers, like half of them per level?

Quote from: Dog Quixote;514387Can I cast dispel magic on you while you're spider climbing and make you fall?

Does reskinning change the underlying mechanics, y/n?

Quote from: B.T.;514389Does reskinning change the underlying mechanics, y/n?

No.  If it does it's not really reskinning is it?  

Do you adjust the rules to fit the character, or the character to fit the rules?

If you keep the rules as is, and let Dispel Magic cancel out the Thief's supposedly non-magical climbing ability, then it's reskinning.  (And ludicrous, but maybe Darwinism will come along to offer us one of his "explanations")

If you rule in favour of the concept and don't let the dispel magic work, then you're house-ruling (using spells as a basis of extrapolation for extraordinary powers) not reskinning.

I'm pretty sure 3e requires you to take a feat to re-skin spells.

I wish I were joking.