Quote from: trechriron;941378Precisely. Make it as unique and flavorful as you want/need. If your setting has no undead but a bunch of Abberations, why not just make the cleric's ability "turn Abberations"? Why not choose Mythrus for custom cults, guilds, etc. and tailor a more generic ruleset to fit your setting? Or how about you design your setting, and use some OSR elbow grease and create a selection of classes (weapons, magic, items, treasure) that fits your setting?

You don't need to constrained by D&D's assumptions, but ignoring how the game was built and ignoring class abilities so you can shoehorn D&D into your setting just seems crap to me. It's not very player-centric (which we may not care about in this instance...).

The basis of the counter point here is flawed. If the setting is more important to you find or tweak a ruleset to match - NOT vice versa (IMHO).

It certainly makes it less of a struggle when the default system more readily accommodates the setting. I guess another option is not to be so tied to setting that you're forced to interminably tweak everything.  If I were just dead set on running 5E, I suppose a healthy way to approach setting/player options might be to take a look at what is offered, provide my "what's available" list of races/classes, then assume that anything listed as an option is something the players can and will take, and, by extension, it's going to be in my campaign, and in a significant way. Otherwise, as you contend (correctly), I'm just riffing on my fluff at the expense of my players' fun. As I don't normally have anything fancy in the way of setting, it's pretty easy for me to run with what the players want to bring to the table. There's always room for me to drop in stuff I think is cool, alongside their desires.

See, I think WotC with 5e is being far less "All Options are Mandatory" than they were in 3e and 4e where the Splatmill was the business model.  Now that the model has shifted to keeping up Brand value, they are far more willing to let the GM actually decide things for themselves.  All that matters is that you are playing D&D and WotC sells them all.

The DM's Guild, Adventures in Middle Earth, all this points to the Splatmill no longer being the accepted norm for individual tabletop play.  Now sure, everything official, structured play, etc, is going off of Bog Standard Forgotten Realms with all standard rules, but 5e is more open than any other WotC flavor of D&D.

However...
1. You can't expect players after 15 years of  WotC shoving splat options down GM's throats to switch immediately out of the "It's Published therefore I can play it" mindset.
2. 5e is still a powers-based design with classes being Widget Templates.  Those Widgets have Emergent Complexity in combination, and you start combining them differently - different things happen.
3. 5e has new assumptions that didn't exist in older flavors of D&D (unlimited firebolts that set things on fire just being one of them) and class design while much simpler than other WotC flavors, is still not simple.

Basically, after spending the whole 21st Century trying to exterminate GM judgement, and training an entire generation of GMs to walk with crutches, WotC probably should give a little more help to those GMs, now that they actually are suggesting that they be GMs instead of trained screenmonkeys.

Quote from: trechriron;941353There's a reason there are so many games, because the way they play can be different. I agree there are assumptions built into D&D. Classes are built with options. Players choose those classes because of those options. So, removing whole aspects of the game that make those options no longer valid, is generally misrepresenting the game you're running.

I was going to say that the bolded portion here is more or less true depending on where the player is on the planned-arc / play-to-find-out axis for character creation, but then I read this...

Quote from: trechriron;941353This is one of my pet peeves. I'm not the only person with this peeve. It's also fucking lazy. There are so many generic OR non-D&D fantasy systems you could choose to get closer to your jack-ass "fuck everything" because I'm baby Jesus fantasy setting than lying to your players and then fucking them in the player-whole by nerfing the shit out of their options.

... and decided it would be best if I slowly backed away without making eye contact.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015For instance, you want most player choices to be valid when running 5e, you'd better have the following baked into your campaign world:

Well, first of all, unless I am GMing Greyhawk or the Realms, I can guarantee you that many things *won't* be baked into the world.  Setting first.  If D&D can be tweaked to fit the setting, then I will, and the players will be apprised of the changes, they can choose if they want to play under those conditions.  Most of the time, I've found, if players find out what the changes are going in, they don't have a problem with it.

The trick is, to remember that in most cases you are removing Bland, Vanilla, Generic, Flavorless options and replacing them with setting specific options that ties the character into the setting more.  Remove the ability of Thor Clerics to Turn Undead, but give them some kind of Thunder, Lightning or Hammer ability no other priesthood gets, they won't even give a shit about losing undead turning.

About the original list...

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015A god or pantheon that covers all the cleric domains (life, light, nature, war, tempest, trickery, knowledge, and optionally death)

My D&D gods are much more specific, usually with specific spell lists per god as opposed to Domains, so this doesn't bother me, but...if you are assuming that you don't want to remove options from PC generation or substantively alter the rules, then Yes, this is correct, you must do this, otherwise the different Clerics will not be balanced against each other.  Whether you care, is something else entirely.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Super fairies, Satan, and Cthulu knock-offs for the warlocks to get their pact abilities from

Yes, you are correct.  This class assumes a Cosmology different from other versions of D&D.  There must be an alternate power mechanism for the granting of power different from the Cleric.  However, you do not necessarily need to have it be some form of creature other than a god.  It could be Theurgy, a form of magic based on discovering the nature of the divine and becoming one with it.  That requires altering the class and its powers somewhat to work, however.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015A context for monks

Yes, you are correct, the 5e Monk elevates the powers to an overt, magical, supernatural level essentially giving them spells without any explanation of the change in established worlds.  Extremely disappointing class, terribly flavorless, just like everything dealing with Savage Worlds magic.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Dragon spellcasting and likely dragon bestiality for sorcerers to exist. Also, you really want the whole rainbow of dragon varieties so the sorcerer's range of damage types is complete.

Sorcerers in and of themselves force a Cosmology assumption of the "magical bloodline".  This isn't unique to 5e, though, this shit has been around since 3e.  About the bestiality thing...really?  It's not like a human male crawled inside a female dragon and jerked himself off, or a human female sat in a tub of dragon semen with a turkey baster.  The dragon or human is shapechanged and both are sentient beings, neither is an animal.  That being said, I've been laughing at the "Dragon Everything" Fetish since the Draconomicon.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Undead for casters to create or clerics to repel

There's never been a version of D&D without Undead that I recall, even AiME has barrow wights and ringwraiths.  If you're going to have such a divergent setting, coming up with something else for Clerics to do, that's on you.  Or just say, "no Undead, so no turning, no you don't get Turn Sewer Rat or something else to compensate, cowboy up, quit your milquetoasting and grab the fucking dice."

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015A high frequency of large creatures for certain key ranger ability choices to target

Yes, you are correct.  If you allow a class based entirely on it's {Insert Metadata Tag Here} Slaying Ability, then you need to have {Metadata Tags} to slay.  However, I always call bullshit on having to make up adventures with those creatures.
Q. What do you when the Clerics cry when the Orc Fort doesn't have undead to turn, and the Rangers cry that the Forgotten Temple has no humanoids?
A. Play with adults.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Elementals, fey, demons, and heavenly beings across a range of challenge ratings for certain spells to summon and some paladin abilities to matter.

Yes, you are correct, in that for the game to play as designed and players will get to Tap those Card...err I mean use those Widgets, then you have to include those things.  But, my answer is, No, I really don't.  You don't need to be spamming your specials every fight or even every adventure.  Over time it averages out.  Unfortunately, the advancement scheme in 5e is so laughably fast, if you don't specifically design for a focused ability, the player may level before they get to use it. If you don't have players who can't handle not spamming their abilities every fight, then See above.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Frequent mind-affecting magic from enemies so that some saving throws, racial abilities, class abilities, and feats get to matter.

To be honest, if I were a 1e fighter that got to choose to be immune from all psionics instead of say, weapon specialization, I would probably choose it, and if I never ran into Mind Flayers or Intellect Devourers, I'd retire happy still.  The answer to this one is like the others.  If you have players that have to feel those Widgets are coming into play every session, then yeah you need to tailor to meet that expectation.  The answer again, is flushing the special snowflakes down the toilet along with that Macho Combo Burrito you had for lunch.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Adamantine and mythril get references in a few scattered mechanics

It's mentioned going back to at least AD&D, that +4 weapons required Mithril I think, and +5 required Adamantite.  Replace with whatever, or flush that.  Does any PC have abilities that specifically key off of Mithril or Adamantite?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Magic weapons common enough so that many monsters types can be reasonably fought by non-casters

Well, that's been true to a certain degree always, but...Yes, you are correct, the paradigm has changed in 5e, now that all casters have some form of At-Will magical damage, then that does change things quite a bit.  Before, casters could do damage to things that needed magic to damage, but they expended resources to do so.  Now they do not.  Essentially all casters get a free magical weapon at chargen and non-casters do not.  Dramatically different assumption in adventure design.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015Does this bug anyone else?

Yes.  For me 5e is disappointing because it almost made it.  4e was easy to dismiss. 5e gets so many things right, but it also contains a lot of the same completely terrible and erroneous assumptions as 4e.  However, it IS fixable, and I would argue more fixable than full blown 3.5 is, because it is simpler.  I'm just not running a campaign now that would be worth running in 5e.

It's the most palatable offering from WotC... like the "almost tasty?" result from an array of three mysterious Japanese candies.

Quote from: Opaopajr;941442It's the most palatable offering from WotC... like the "almost tasty?" result from an array of three mysterious Japanese candies.

It's the Luby's of D&D offerings.:-)

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015For instance, you want most player choices to be valid when running 5e, you'd better have the following baked into your campaign world:
- A god or pantheon that covers all the cleric domains (life, light, nature, war, tempest, trickery, knowledge, and optionally death)
- Super fairies, Satan, and Cthulu knock-offs for the warlocks to get their pact abilities from
- A context for monks
- Dragon spellcasting and likely dragon bestiality for sorcerers to exist. Also, you really want the whole rainbow of dragon varieties so the sorcerer's range of damage types is complete.
- Undead for casters to create or clerics to repel
- A high frequency of large creatures for certain key ranger ability choices to target
- Elementals, fey, demons, and heavenly beings across a range of challenge ratings for certain spells to summon and some paladin abilities to matter.
- Frequent mind-affecting magic from enemies so that some saving throws, racial abilities, class abilities, and feats get to matter.
- Adamantine and mythril get references in a few scattered mechanics
- Magic weapons common enough so that many monsters types can be reasonably fought by non-casters

I run a vanilla D&D game with all this stuff. I also run a sword-and-sorcery Primeval Thule game that has almost none of them, including most of the classes (cleric, monk, ranger, paladin, etc.) that those setting elements are supposedly required to support. It's really not a problem.

Quote from: Greg Benage;941683I also run a sword-and-sorcery Primeval Thule game that has almost none of them, including most of the classes (cleric, monk, ranger, paladin, etc.) that those setting elements are supposedly required to support.

Primeval Thule with 5e is something I'm interested in doing as well, so I'd be interested to hear anything you'd care to share about it.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;941686Primeval Thule with 5e is something I'm interested in doing as well, so I'd be interested to hear anything you'd care to share about it.

As written, it's really sword-and-sorcery-flavored D&D. I think it's too much D&D and not enough sword-and-sorcery, so mostly it was just excising some of the D&D genre elements. I cut out all classes except barbarian, fighter, rogue and open-hand monk. Then I created a "sorcery" feat chain to give limited access to magic, though it comes at a cost. I trimmed all the "flash" out of the available spells list. Races are mostly human, though the PT elves are pretty cool. I tried to go back to the source and created some Norse-inspired fluff for dwarves to make them a little more non-human. No other player races.

So really that's all there was to it. The PT stuff is cool S&S, so it was really about removing some of the D&D to get the right balance (for me).

ETA: But as an example related to the OP, I don't include magic weapons to make it easier to fight supernatural creatures with resistance to non-magic weapons. Those creatures are rare and horrible, so you either have to overcome their resistance with your mundane weapons or maybe you go raid a tomb where you think a really rare magic weapon might be found. Though there's probably something guarding the tomb that's resistant to non-magical weapons.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;941279Perception.  It's not his favourite edition.

I see.

Shemek

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015There are a lot of quiet assumptions made about D&D worlds in the 5e system that might not jump out at you until your are working on the details of a setting. The fact that they are hard-coded in the player-facing book and  aren't flagged somewhere in the DMG can be a little inconvenient at times.

For instance, you want most player choices to be valid when running 5e, you'd better have the following baked into your campaign world:
- A god or pantheon that covers all the cleric domains (life, light, nature, war, tempest, trickery, knowledge, and optionally death)

That depends on the setting. The first 5e game I ran was in Karameikos. Here's the map I made There are no Gods in Mystara and Clerics do not need Immortals to get their spells.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- Super fairies, Satan, and Cthulu knock-offs for the warlocks to get their pact abilities from

Don't forget cute fuzzy animals that forge pacts with Warlocks who happen to call themselves Magical Girls. There are other pact options, via Unearthed Arcana. Or if you are playing 5e via the Basic set and SRD, you don't even have to worry about the Warlock. My default for this is to use the Feywild and the Shadowfell (formerly known as the demi plane of Shadow) as analogues to the Seelie and Unseelie courts. That covers a lot of ground and eliminates the need of parallels to Abrahamic religion, unless of course I am running a game on Gothic Earth in which case you have your choice of real world faiths.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- A context for monks

Heh, the first monk I read about was Friar Tuck in a Dragon Magazine article about Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Shortly after, my first purchase of a D&D hardcover book was Oriental Adventures, and my oldest character is a monk who was originally from Greyhawk and a worshipper of Xan Yae.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- Dragon spellcasting and likely dragon bestiality for sorcerers to exist. Also, you really want the whole rainbow of dragon varieties so the sorcerer's range of damage types is complete.

*cough* Melniboneans *cough*

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- Undead for casters to create or clerics to repel

In AD&D evil clerics can turn Paladins who are for the most part not undead. By logical extension, turning can be adapted to mean any creature whose beliefs or existence is in opposition to your own beliefs. Think about this. Two mighty Paragons of their respective faiths meet on the battle field with armies in tow. They both turn the other's lower level forces, clearing the battle field forcing them to engage each other one on one. Imagine doing this to PCs, who stumble into a temple and some old codger lifts up some symbol and says, "Get ye hence, vile adventurers!" Good times.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- A high frequency of large creatures for certain key ranger ability choices to target

Why do they have to be large?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- Elementals, fey, demons, and heavenly beings across a range of challenge ratings for certain spells to summon and some paladin abilities to matter.

There's no reason why this couldn't be adapted to equally dangerous yet more mundane creatures.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- Frequent mind-affecting magic from enemies so that some saving throws, racial abilities, class abilities, and feats get to matter.

I'd probably do this anyway. I like beasties that mess with your head. As for alternate ways to keep those abilities relevant I probably need to think about it.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- Adamantine and mythril get references in a few scattered mechanics

Adamant and Orichalcum are mythical materials from our world which may or may not have existed. I think in Indian mythology, Vajra is similar to Adamant but is also a reference to Diamond. The point is, you can have references to those materials, but they don't have to appear. Nowhere in 5e does it say the characters are entitled to items made from Adamantine or Mithril.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;941015- Magic weapons common enough so that many monsters types can be reasonably fought by non-casters

Or not... If you ever played in the Masque of the Red Death setting on Gothic Earth, one Werewolf who is immune to non magical or non silver weapons can cause a lot of problems for a lot of people before the scourge is dealt with. Unless one of them is the Lone Ranger in which case all bets are off.

Quote from: Greg Benage;941688As written, it's really sword-and-sorcery-flavored D&D. I think it's too much D&D and not enough sword-and-sorcery, so mostly it was just excising some of the D&D genre elements. I cut out all classes except barbarian, fighter, rogue and open-hand monk. Then I created a "sorcery" feat chain to give limited access to magic, though it comes at a cost. I trimmed all the "flash" out of the available spells list. Races are mostly human, though the PT elves are pretty cool. I tried to go back to the source and created some Norse-inspired fluff for dwarves to make them a little more non-human. No other player races.

So really that's all there was to it. The PT stuff is cool S&S, so it was really about removing some of the D&D to get the right balance (for me).

This is very similar to what I was thinking of doing, so it's encouraging to hear it's working out!

I'm leaning toward human-only for players.  I liked the alien/black lotus drug ennui feel of the PT elves so much that I felt having them be playable would detract from that.

Quote from: Greg Benage;941688ETA: But as an example related to the OP, I don't include magic weapons to make it easier to fight supernatural creatures with resistance to non-magic weapons. Those creatures are rare and horrible, so you either have to overcome their resistance with your mundane weapons or maybe you go raid a tomb where you think a really rare magic weapon might be found. Though there's probably something guarding the tomb that's resistant to non-magical weapons.

The watering down of immunities to resistances is a pox on D&D!  If fighting a Shadow early on isn't a terrifying experience then I don't know what adventure means