Apart from the fact that I’ve seen so many D&D players choose to play a half-orc to play the “son of two worlds” stereotype… beautifully represented by the Star Trek character Spock.
Some players, with whom I was lucky enough to interact, perfectly rendered this inner conflict and gave birth to characters with truly compelling stories and decisions, also exploiting the handicap of the low charisma score to give that extra touch to their interpretation.
Other times I’ve seen half-orc performances very similar to Critical Role’s Grog… I think Grog also scores badly in Wisdom and yet he’s a very popular character.
As far as the Duergar are concerned, unless you overcopy a “Dritzz dwarf” in a party, let’s say, oriented towards the heroic style, I see it difficult to use unless a good DM who instead focuses his campaign in the “Underdark” where the party is a group of mercenaries of mixed races in a cruel world.
In that case I played as a Derro, while two partymates were Duergar and another was a Drow of Bregan D’aerthe. We had a blast and seeing him play a Duergar who can take it out on his Illithid captors was great.
I’m sorry to hear that nowadays gamers just like to role-play stereotyped characters to perfection and don’t try to figure out and interpret what isn’t perfect or “right” to figure out how it feels to be someone who hasn’t been kissed by fate.
I do agree with point #2 almost completely. There is a fundamental elegance to the 3.x edition rules that is, afaik, it’s best expression of a D&D rule set. I include Pathfinder 1st edition in that category. Of course, I like NWN too, so I may be biased!
I’ve played 5E a little, but only brief adventures of 1 to 3 session duration. I liked it as I said earlier, but I will admit it was a bit too simplified for my tastes. I’d probably get a bit bored with it long term. However for me, it’s more about the people I play with and the setting than the rules when it comes to in-person tabletop.
We’re not in Socrates’ cave debating shadows on the wall, there’s a wider internet out there people bring their experiences from.
However, its regardless because it is accurate to the original rule intentions of the game. That’s how 5E works. BG3 is not a 1E game. BG3 is not a 2E game. BG3 is not a 3E game. BG3 is not a 4E game. So those games and their rule systems are irrelevant. 5E is “Pick whatever stat boost you like”. If it didn’t have those, it would be doing a poor job at emulating 5E
Stats are arbitery and based on how people see the stereotype they want a race perceived. I can make an easy justification that rather than being the ‘everyman’ option, humans should instead get a Con bonus, as humans are long-distance striders. Our endurance defines us against other great apes and other animals. But, that’s not how D&D did it
You’re criticising the decision to not have negative stats, which is a 5E convention. Therefore, you are, by definition, criticising 5E. That’s the whole reason there are no negative stats. Its not some ‘oh everyone equal’ thing, it is “That is how the RPG Dungeons and Dragons 5E presents things”. It also lets you pick if you want to be Small or Medium on a few races.
I can think of plenty of charismatic dwarves. And I’m gonna disagree on that stone masonry thing. They don’t come out of the womb knowing how to work stone. Their culture sure can teach them to be better at such, but its not an ingrained dwarven trait
Heck are you talking about? Plenty of folks would just chose the opposite, consider the elf some snooty suck-up. But, y’know, we’re getting into the failure of stats overall as a thing
Yes, see? These are to do with the divine. Nothing to do with ‘good’.
you just. posted a definition of ‘holy’ that squarely put it in the realm of religion
Like I could dig further into that but, your definition of ‘holy’ was flat out, the first thing, ‘dedicated to God or a religious purpose’. That’s. Religion right there.
Dungeons and Dragons was inspired by books of the time. Appendix N. You can downright see its inspirations everywhere
Just, thing is? Most of those books that inspired D&D are downright non-existent these days, with the exception of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, which had their own rocky history. Maybe Conan as well, though I feel that’s more of a ‘people know the movies more than the novels’.
These fantasy stories told these days? That’s what people’s D&D stories are going to be inspired by, not Three Hearts and Three Lions or Stormbringer. Heck, bring up a talking Runeblade, and people are going to go for Warcarft and Arthas well before Elric even comes to mind.
Dungeons and Dragons, by necessity, has to change and evolve with the times.
(On an unrelated that Paladin thing is funny as I know a fair few D&D folks who say the paladin class should actually be removed entirely. But then again, they also say we should remove druid and just put it under Cleric which is, wrong)
People came to Dungeons and Dragons with a view on what ‘Dwarf’ was formed by other sources since the start. Don’t forget, Halflings were flat out just Hobbits in the original printing. Dungeons and Dragons has been inspired by outside sources since day 1
I mean, Metaplot bad. This is why Eberron and 5E both ignore it. Ask oldschool Greyhawk fans what they thought about the Greyhawk War, the 1e to 2e joining event over there, and I’m sure you’ll get similar views. Just the 1E to 2E, and 2E to 3E arguments were pre a big internet so we didn’t get them as heavy as we did 3E to 4E. But I absolutely bet you folks from back then hated the Time of Troubles just as much, or the railroad-y nonsense of Die Vecna Die. Plenty of stuff people preferred about 4E. It has a far more adventure-y Outer Planes than the Wheel ever was, along with , y’know. Actual reasons to go out there and have conflict in other places opposite to the Wheel’s “We’re just going to assign everything based on alingment and corrupt the character of all the actual mythological deities we shove into this mess”. Also giant dimensional ship for Bahamut so he can go inter-planer to rescue lost souls from the deaths of other gods
And on mechanics? Well. We are talking on a 3E forum. The edition that gave us the insane character optimisation nonsense that needed folks to create characters from level 1 and was absolutely beginner unfriendly. 5E is far simpler, this I’ll agree, but 4E grew directly as an outgrowth of late 3.5E, where that complicated math was the norm
As Tarot already said: the advanced Edition introduced four different methods to roll ability scores. Neither was recommended. Anyway, I was not talking about Advanced D&D, but the edition before that called original D&D (the original three little brown books originating from Chainmail). There it was 3D6 in order, rolled by the “referee”, as it was called in book one.
Your opening post does not reflect this statement, at least not the point about negative modifiers. The video you posted is also not about negative modifiers, but about the rules change from fixed to flexible ability bonuses - or a static flexible bonus across all playable races, to be precise. To make matters worse, and as Mecheon also wrote, fitfh edition D&D has no negative modifiers. Are you moving the goal post by subtly changing the topic?
I don’t think that the removal of negative ability modifiers is because of modern cultural sensibilities. Adding numbers is just easier for most people. It’s also why the descending armor class was changed to an ascending one in the earlier editions. Keeping the math sparse and consistent widens the group of buyers. That’s what Hasbro is after: selling a shit ton of books, and re-selling the same books with each new edition.
To be fair that’s mostly a matter of marketing. Hasbro is a powerhouse and they invest millions every year to promote their game. Every month new tabletop rpgs are being released and they seldom reach traction to gather a big enough following, despite having “modern” rulesets.
Considering how fantasy races tend to be quite biologically different, race should indeed have some effect on their ability scores but not too much for more grounded humanoid races, since upbringing and training can indeed bridge physical and mental gaps with enough effort (and also for the sake of making all races viable for a wide variety of builds).
Let’s take for example an untrained kobold and human. It will definitely be harder to hit the kobold because of their smaller body size but it also means any hit can easily hit a vital organ. On the other hand, humans can be more easily hit due to being larger in comparison but incoming hits are less likely to hit a vital organ.
A more extreme example would be Illithids with their innate psionic abilities. Sure, any other intelligent sapient race can try to learn it if they have the talent for it but they might never match their abilities.
You’re right. Basic D&D had the 3D6 roll in order too. They even had the swapping around of ability points oD&D already mentioned. Just looked it up. Never really played this edition.
In the end, race should be a cosmetic choice and that’s it.
Small differences that don’t make significant long term impact are fine for adding flavor here and there are fine, but crippling penalties or too strong bonuses effectively pigeonholes races into certain roles to the point that every X class has to be Y race for an optimal build effectively kills the whole potential of choices that an rpg should be all about, the more choice, the better.
Sure, a gnome warrior being on par with a dwarf warrior might look silly, but do we really care about such trivialities? It’s a game about a fantasy setting, surely we can conjure whatever bullshit excuse we like to pretend a gnome can be just as good as a fighter as a dwarf. If we can suspend belief that there are mages capable of launching fireballs by just chanting a spell, surely we can accept something like that which is way less imbued in the fantasy element.
It also causes an additional layer of balance issues.
MMORPGs like World of Warcraft went through this process decades ago (races made a substantial difference in vanilla, but they quickly nerfed/rebalanced them all as soon as TBC came out), simply because in multiplayer games balance came out much earlier as an important factor in gameplay compared to single player games, it’s a thing about the evolution of the industry.
P.S. the poll is clearly biased and it’s almost as if it was done with the intent of insulting whoever has a different opinion than 1.
1 for me, although 2 makes it a bit closer to the original source, like the things mentioned above, orcs not being bigger as default, coming in all shapes and sizes and gnomes being able to be just short dwarves.
I agree with this 100%. How he was treated was spice added to a story that would have otherwise been like every other story in the HUGE stack of fantasy stories. I personally had the most fun with a character that had horrible randomized stats and negative modifiers. It added spice to my characters story and gave hilarious results! I speaking from a Pen and Paper table top point of view.
Just a quick post to say that I lost internet since Monday and so have not been able to read any posts, but will do now. I will respond where and when I can.
Just bear in mind that any periods of “silence” may just simply be that my internet is playing up again. I’ll post back when I have caught up.
Sure, I understand this. I just think it is “daft” and does not reflect the historical and quite good systems of the past. As I say, certainly not selling me on 5E. For my tastes, it is much too … er … “fair” ← Trying to avoid upset.
Again, you are confusing ability stats among “kind” of race, from differing race. If you cannot see the difference in what I am trying to say, then you have proven the point of what I am trying to say about different understanding/interpretation of the rules. By all means, play the 5e way, I’m sure I will too. It’s just “wrong” in its application with respect to demonstrating the differences between the races.
OK, if we are making direct correlations between my not liking negative scores and not liking 5E, then you are forgetting to mention any and all other games that also do not employ negative racial adjustments. This is not just about 5E, although that video summed it up and happened to be about 5E and the first time I have personally encountered it in a D&D game. So, to be clear, any and all games that do not have some kind of differentiation are, in my opinion, not employing some good rules that I can work with from a gaming perspective. Yes, in my opinion, these games that lack such distinction are (all other things being equal) worse than others that include them - That is the POLL question by the way.
This comment (again) proves my point of a difference in thinking/understanding, which the rules of avoiding negative values actually show. The point is, they do “come out of the womb” with that natural bent of working with stone! It’s far less to do with their culture … apart from the fact you cannot appear to separate the “natural dwarf” from the “dwarf brought up in a drapery store” concept. This latter ideology is “modern” and not the sort of thing I expect to see in a fantasy game, as all it is doing is supporting modern idea and values that do not exist.
Again, you are humanising the character! Elves, by their nature, are not like that. Bad portrayal (or different portrayal) may have damaged your appreciation of the elf type race. Note, also, you can have variations within the race.
If you searched, you would find that in the context of absolutes, only the “divine” is truly “good”. When and how you use the words “good” and “evil” vary according to where you are trying to employ them. You cannot employ them as they are in or world to a fantasy world, and vice-versa… although… another story.
You have a restricted view of the word “religion” … “Holy” in its true world usage does only pertain to God, who I do believe exists. Therefore, using the word “religion” when talking to me, I will use the word “holy” in the context it is meant. However, if you are profane in its usage, then it is your usage of the word (or any related words) that is/are in error. (When trying to apply the same meaning in a fantasy world.)
Look, the argument you are having is not to do with any revision of D&D, nor is it just to do with words and their definitions. However, it is about understanding a “fundamental truth”, which is why I pointed to the “Emperor’s Clothes” analogy. It does not matter where the argument originally sprang from, but it does matter what people who hear the argument actually think about with respect to what it means to them. Bottom line: Sometimes, “life” (real or fantasy) has “positives” and “negatives”. the real mature understanding is how to deal with them without complaining. Ignoring the negatives, or painting everything in a positive light, is simply lying to yourself and others - but I know why that happens, as people are too afraid to face a reality of what this would mean.
I’m sure it has… But, not all change is good change. Not everything is a “winning update”!
I am definitely not changing the goalposts - I stand by what I originally wrote, but only changed some words because I was asked to, in case they proved emotive.
To be clear: This has nothing to do with 5E specifically, as I only posted that link to the video to demonstrate the position that newer CRPGs appeared to be heading, with the doing away of negative modifiers for races. It just so happened, this is what I noticed in this video, which just happened to be D&D 5E. It felt relevant because NWN uses a D&D ruleset (3E) and (having not played 5e in PnP), I was surprised to learn that this game was removing such helpful negative modifiers with respect to the races.
The removal does beg the question, as it either does have that sense of appealing to “cultural sensibilities” or it is instead, just dumbing down the game because players cannot cope with the fact that playing a different race means there are penalties in some aspects for doing so. That is playing to the lowest denominator, which, as I say above, is fine for a company that is just trying to reach its widest audience, and may not have such a connection with how these rules were originally intended to be interpreted.
You cannot compare the way AC values were applied negatively to what we are talking about here with racial differences. That is a “chalk and cheese” argument. Surely, you can see that…
Well, that means you do not regard the races as “different” enough to affect their natural abilities, whereas many voters appeared to prefer otherwise. Choosing a race is as much about how your character will begin their journey in the world ahead, either at an advantage or disadvantage with some aspects due to their race. That, in my opinion, is really a cool gaming recognition of how the races differ. As the game progresses, then, players may try to improve their lesser abilities if they want to play it that way, but it will be a lot harder for them in the race that they have chosen compared to that of another player.
I disagree. There are so many areas where “game balance” could be argued that if we really looked close at the game, we may as well (if we really wanted everything balanced), ensure everyone starts with the same race, class and level as everyone else.
…I’m sure people can make up their own minds. There is no bias at all! It is that a player is either for or against the initial modifiers set according to the race selected. I think what you are seeing is a very positive result that most players actually prefer to take a little “rough with the smooth” when selecting their race. Please, if anything, tell me what is wrong with that?
The only objection I suppose one could raise, is that people may feel “offended” with others who do not agree with the way things are heading with newer versions of the game. To quote a previous post, it’s as if they now wish to also “complain” about people objecting to their call for positive modifiers. To put what you said another way, you are upset about the democratic result here.
But, maybe this poll is “biased” on these forums because NWN is D&D 3E … but, to be honest, that is an area of players I am interested to hear what they actually prefer. Personally, I am thankful that I am still playing among those who also appreciate the racial differences when rolling one up.
The problem is that people seem hell bent on associating fantasy ‘races’ with real-world peoples or ethnicities (There really is, of course, a single ‘race’ called ‘human’). Because of this, real offense and feelings of persecution or racism can be felt, even when dealing with entirely made up races. I don’t dismiss out of hand anyone’s feelings on this, actually. I think it’s misplaced, but feelings are feelings. That said, if focus is on the gaming aspect - as opposed to any social/cultural/anthropological aspect – then my opinion aligns (er, I think) quite a lot with Lance’s.
I find that removing all substantive differences from races removes something inportant to me from the game. For one thing, it undermines the fantasy concept of distinguishing actual ‘races’ and not simply societies or cultures. Stepping away from all races in the game being thought of as ‘people’ lets one understand that an elephant is stronger than a mouse, no matter how it is raised. And a mouse is weaker than a bear, not matter how much training it does.
I lament (okay, that’s way to strong a word about ANY game! ) the removing of restrictions to class based on race, because of the same reason, it lessens the very pronounced differences between these fantasy races. Also, if an individual from a fantasy race DOES deviate from the norms of the race, THEY ARE EXCEPTIONAL. They aren’t exceptional though, if there are no norms to deviate from, ya know?
Long winded, but really . . . meh, it’s a game. I can always play the games I want, and others can play the ones they want. Live and let live.
Why can’t I compare them? The various editions of D&D were changed over time and the “math” was gradually harmonized. It’s not only the armor class that changed into an additive system, but also the saving throws. The whole ability check and its roll under ability was thrown out and replaced. Nowadays it’s just roll 1D20 and add modifiers to compare it to a target number. No different rolls (under or over), no 1D6 and no 1D100, and especially no subtractions.
The whole setting changed from “nobodies walking down a dark corridor to find some gold” to “heroes saving the world, again”. There’s no place for negative modifiers if you want to sell this fantasy. And it also goes hand in hand with the above, to make the ruleset easier to grasp.
You are saying that Hasbro changed the negative ability modifiers because of customer’s demand. Where do you get this from?
What ever happened to gaming groups (and people) just playing a frickin’ game without all these big philosophical discussions? IMO, it just sucks the fun out of it.
Your statement about balance is logically wrong. If race was only a cosmetic choice, then it wouldn’t affect game balance at all, therefore the statement to ensure that everyone is of same race to achieve balance would be void. In fact it might become much plausible in the opposite scenario, the one you prefer.
We even had a real example of this in Vanilla WoW and Horde Tanks, where Taurens were greatly advantaged compared to other races for that role (Alliance did not have this similar unbalance between their races).
As soon as Blizzard recognized this, racial differences were toned down a big deal in further expansions, and now they have pretty much been reduced to flavoresque (nearly cosmetical) differences. So minimal that they do not impact gameplay significantly.
The poll is biased because the way is worded it clearly skews the way towards option 1, it has the cool catchphrase born out of conventional wisdom, vs the political pejorative slogan of option 2. If you didn’t put that “Life is Unfair” vs “Wokeism: Everyon’s a winner!” (which by the way almost implies that racial initial scores determines who is a winner or who is a loser, when clearly there are many other factors that could and should affect this) it would have been less biased.
In fact, without those quoted sentences option 1 and option 2 are not mutually exclusive since in races can differ in their basic initial bonuses, while still having similar initial ability scores, because similar does NOT mean the same.
If you wanted them to be truly alternatives to each other option 1 should have been, "races should differ in their basic initial abilities bonuses --substantially or drastically-- " since that would have made it incompatible with option 2.
As it stands the only true differerence in the options is the slogan between quotes.
Also, about “the democratic result”, please don’t make me laugh. 24 (but could be even 240 or 2400) people is not a representative sample of anything, especially when we are discussing generalized statements about the genre as a whole and its whole market (which encompassess millions of players across the world).
In any case a poll on a forum is not a democratic process and if you think it is I’m afraid that the grasp of democracy as a whole completely eludes you.
Because the AC was generally changed due to confusion against the norm style of the way the numbers worked, and not about the numbers themselves. The negative racial numbers are simply “removed” and replaced with a different system that does not reflect the same thing.
I didn’t say this, but another poster (and a few agreed with them) that they were changed to satisfy a response of some “complaining” about the negative numbers. My point was why would anyone agree to that, when there was no “unfair” reason to do so.
I only posted a quick poll to see what others felt about it - I had no idea it would invite such a heated discussion as it has - with or without the “w” word being added. My poll was to test if I was not alone in seeing what to me appeared a disproportionate response to the way negative modifiers were viewed.
Sorry, I’m not following what you are trying to say. Re “woke”, see my other comments. I simply used it as the opposite “catchphrase” of the other “life phrase”. I tried to remove it when advised that some people may not take it the way I intended, but it could not be edited. Even now, I don’t see it as any major concern to use an expression that people would know what I meant by it (or at least thought they would). It was hyperbole. The edited alternatives were last minute changes (not ideal) to try to offer similar extremes without upsetting those who may be sensitive to its use.
Re the poll: It’s really no big deal, you either agree with one side or the other - how you interpret the options is part of the response I am looking at I guess. So, with or without the sensitive word, people are just responding with their like or dislike of the option in discussion. Even without the “w” word, the bottom line is, people of this poll have voted that removing initial racial modifiers is not in favour from those that voted. That’s cool and fine by me, as I also think that. BUT, it would not have caused me to respond with a large discussion had it not been for the unexpected and unreasonable defensive language of a selection of people that thought the option for “positive” modifiers only had somehow been unfairly represented. I suppose it goes with the same attitude of those that found the “negative” values a problem in the first place. It’s really not a poll to debate over, but one that I was gathering opinion - even if I somehow (by using the word “woke”) gave some indication that I was coming from the position that I thought the idea of all positive modifiers as the “unfair” position when I placed the poll. There was an irony in the way I worded the poll, and one that anyone who had a point of discussion could reasonably respond to, to help clarify the other so called position of the “fairer” way and could demonstrate. So far, I don’t think either those objections, or the result of the poll, actually serve to give a good defence of removing “negative” modifiers.
So, with the results in, and arguments pretty much settled on the matter, I have closed the poll.
I totally agree with you that the poll was an extremely small and 3E biased poll. BUT, as I was interested in the opinion of my fellow NWN players, then this appeared to be a fair poll to ask, considering I was shocked when I saw the video, and wanted to hear what they had to think about this position too.
Basically, to all: It was a quick poll among a group of fellows in this forum, and I am happy to see that the majority also thought that removing negative racial modifiers at the start of a character build to be less attractive than the all positive ones - for all reasons of our own.
Thank you to all those that voted, and enjoy the game you play - with or without your modifiers. I’m just pleased to see that in this poll, the general consensus was that they preferred to stick with the negative modifiers, and seemed to have the same reasoning as I understood it. In this sense, I was not alone in my surprise at this video - perhaps?
For my tastes, it is much too … er … “fair” ← Trying to avoid upset.
) the removing of restrictions to class based on race, because of the same reason, it lessens the very pronounced differences between these fantasy races. Also, if an individual from a fantasy race DOES deviate from the norms of the race, THEY ARE EXCEPTIONAL. They aren’t exceptional though, if there are no norms to deviate from, ya know?