I'd officially take umbrage at my homebrew being rated below a half onion:p:D;)!

Quote from: cranebump;956294It would be hard to dispute that, at this point.

You'd get no argument from me.

Usually if I nix something for power, I don't justify it in-milieu. Frex, I just don't allow Summoners in Pathfinder. No in-game reason needed. It wasn't part of the core rulebook, so I don't feel that I had to explain it out. On the contrary, if there is a new element, I usually feel like it has to fit before I let it in.

I do off-handedly make setting elements that make a world differ from the D&D norm. In my Trinalia setting, the goddess of the moon destroyed lycanthropes as an affront to her portfolio; those that didn't die became permanent beast-men or undead. No balance reason, just a flavor/history thing.

Fun fact, historically many lycanthropes are undead anyway:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;956367Fun fact, historically many lycanthropes are undead anyway:D!

Or a sort of warlock or evil druid as one or two got their power from demonic deals.

Quote from: Omega;956415Or a sort of warlock or evil druid as one or two got their power from demonic deals.

Warlock yes, but those are often undead in folklore, too.

Quote from: AsenRG;956367Fun fact, historically many lycanthropes are undead anyway:D!

Part of the reason I went there, m'boy. Something about "all werewolves are also vampires" appealed to the evil GM in me.

It's one of the reasons I have largely moved on from D&D as a system. Too much assumed baggage. Sure I could tweak it as desired, but I also maintain that most (not all) of their settings do not strictly resemble the assumptions of the ruleset without a massive amount of hand-wavery via Divine fiat.

And even then it's not remotely believable. The Forgotten Realms would largely be ruled by Mageocracies (and in the Old Empires they were). Civilization wouldn't resemble what it is written about if all these forces were in play. That's why as a GM you have to decide what gets emphasized and to what degree.

Obviously if you use your own homebrewed setting your conceits may differ. I'm slowly moving towards the poles of what I want in a game: either low-magic (S&S), or lots and lots of magic (Rifts, something like Exalted that's not Exalted). I'm finding the need for curtailing schools of magic silly, because the propositions of logic will demand that Spellcasters always introduce Spellcaster-problems into a campaign, and you'll either have to up the ante for non-casters which in D&D terms usually means itemization.

I think ultimately you're going to keep running into this "issue" as long as you approach D&D "as is" and use it as a toolkit, which "as is" - it doesn't do a good job of it. It's one of the reasons I moved to Fantasycraft. That *is* a toolkit and lets you do those things. I've shifted to lighter systems like Savage Worlds and I've found they handle most D&D settings better than D&D's established systems do for the kinds of games I run.

That's why I've never, ever, ever used an "established" setting.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;956441That's why I've never, ever, ever used an "established" setting.

Yeah, I'm a lazy fuck. But I'm currently rectifying that.

I actually think that as you hinted at earlier, using an established setting is MORE work than your own because of the shit you have to "reconcile."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;956456I actually think that as you hinted at earlier, using an established setting is MORE work than your own because of the shit you have to "reconcile."

Depends. For example if I took the FR, all the work saved by a million detailed maps and locations would more than compensate me for the trivial task of flushing the timeline, going back to greybox and removing or downgrading all the uber NPCs.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;956456I actually think that as you hinted at earlier, using an established setting is MORE work than your own because of the shit you have to "reconcile."

That's exactly right. It becomes this subtle (at first) tug-of-war between what I want out of the setting vs. the ever-growing conceits of an established setting getting more and more shit piled onto it from outside sources. This is precisely why I like Greybox Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk original boxset. Sure there is nice material from later on - but with the Realms, once all the fiction-crap started getting mechanics to justify up the stupid novels in the various later-splatbooks - it got ugly fast.

I've never held to canon in any game I've ever run in an established setting. So I've come the long way around to realize that all the years I've been running stuff, essentially I've been creating my own fantasy world out of an established setting that oddly takes D&D mechanics more head-on. I've transformed over the course of many years of campaigning, the Realms into what I think it ought to look like *based* on the conceits of the mechanics of D&D/3.x.

Double-irony- it's made it impossible to reconcile what I wrought from 1e-Pathfinder/3.x with 5e. It's led me on this interesting journey that has really just let me jettison D&D altogether, with respect, as something that I don't feel meets my needs. Now I want something either more basic and focused in scope (low-magic gritty) or something *really* big and blown out. I'm going to get around to checking out Godbound. I'm considering at some point in the future doing a FASERIP system stripped of genre-conceits. Then making those genre-modules myself with slight tweaks.

This very thread is but one "issue" in D&D that I find a nuisance. I can easily deal with this stuff. It's the tip of a much larger iceberg for me in that I want the setting to take into account all this stuff *before* my Players make characters. Which is what I do in D&D normally - I set those expectations. But then at that point, you're doing your own homebrew setting, regardless of what you want to call it.

So now I'm saying - call the duck a duck and just fucking do it. So I shall!...so I shall!

Quote from: AsenRG;956418Warlock yes, but those are often undead in folklore, too.

Often?

To be frank, even having to deal with 5E --more or less as is -- has made me a very grumpy GM. I don't like Feats at all, and I'd rather have have a pared down skill list, or none at all. I'm not looking forward to grindy combat due to people looking up stuff (and they will, unless I make a time rule on turns). The biggest proponent of 5E in the group gives me the typical "but it has more options" argument, to which I just reply, "It has more codified options than a stripped down version. You have the same amount of actual options in any game system, based on describing what you want to do. This just lets you put a name to what you do."

It's an age thing. He and his bud are younger players still basking in the glow of sundry widgets. But, this sums up the difference for me. When asked about their character, one of them tells me, "I'm playing a feylock wood elf eventually going pact of blade, maybe pact of tome."

Pacts. Tomes. Feylock. Wood Elf. Could've been worse. He might've said, "I'm playing a Feylock Pact of Tome Wood Elf Kor Hookmaster Acolyte. Named Bob." It just sounds so freakin' pretentious. Makes me miss the days of, "I'm playing an Elf."

Yep. Just a goddamned Elf...

Like I said, I get grumpy...I'll get over it, because we can likely have fun with any system. Plus, it's only a few weeks before the move, then I can kiss 5E core goodbye for good. (I honestly can't believe how annoyed I've been with it [grrrrrr, damned chargen took a couple hours because we had to scour the goddamned feats and spell lists [GRR, I SAY!]).