Unpopular D&D Opinions

[Milodiah]

So next thread Unpopularer D&D Opinions anyone? Yes, I know that is not how you are supposed to say it.

Personally I think D&D doesn't do enough to differentiate the races a lot of the time. Actually forget races, sometimes we are talking about species that are based off of entirely different sections of the animal kingdom, if an animal at all. And yet a lot of the time they feel like skins on people instead of the wildly different beings they could be. I can guess why it might be done that way, but it always feels like it is underselling the idea.

Yeah, in other tabletops I run I usually end up having a few races that are so different they don't have the necessary anatomical structures to even speak human language. But stuff like that doesn't seem to fly as well in D&D where it seems like nothing can truly be "alien". Especially since almost everything speaks Common automatically.

[Telok]

I don't see how a level cap can contribute to fixing that. Class restrictions... could maybe do it a little, I guess, but it seems like a clumsy way of doing it that doesn't always work well with the world-building

Last sentence: "world building so that the dm could run a mostly human party having mostly human adventures with characters that players could rp & relate to easily."

The intent was to push players towards playing humans. High level magic? Human. Paladin? Human. Clumsy? Yes. Late 1970s, early 1980s? Early in the learning curve of rpg design. Did it work? Sometimes, kinda, maybe.

It did pretty much manage to avert the dissonance & difficulty of running a party of dwarf, orc, construct, undead, and elf casters & partial casters through "90% human low magic faux-medeval with occasional dragons" settings that still manages to crop up a fair bit.

[KorvinStarmast]

It did pretty much manage to avert the dissonance & difficulty of running a party of dwarf, orc, construct, undead, and elf casters & partial casters through "90% human low magic faux-medieval with occasional dragons" settings that still manages to crop up a fair bit.

Yes, it worked. Worked well enough to have two editions of the same game in print and selling at the same time.
And the formula fits well enough since most people are human, and playing a make believe human is a lot easier to try to do than to try and play a make believe {creature} and have it not just be "humans in hats".

[Quertus]

OK, so, now is it time to start a new "part 2" thread?

On an unrelated note, "different level advancement rates" was an *awesome* idea! Because characters leveled so slowly, and the group usually only owned a single copy of the physical books (Internet? What newfangled nonsense is that?), usually only one character leveled at a time, meaning a) that player got to use the books / the GM's time to level (so much better than *everyone* leveling at once, btw); b) that character got to feel special, that *they* had new toys, while everyone else was the same as they had been last session.

Truly, brilliant design. 10 out of 10. Would highly recommend.

[dafrca]

OK, so, now is it time to start a new "part 2" thread?

On an unrelated note, "different level advancement rates" was an *awesome* idea! Because characters leveled so slowly, and the group usually only owned a single copy of the physical books (Internet? What newfangled nonsense is that?), usually only one character leveled at a time, meaning a) that player got to use the books / the GM's time to level (so much better than *everyone* leveling at once, btw); b) that character got to feel special, that *they* had new toys, while everyone else was the same as they had been last session.

Truly, brilliant design. 10 out of 10. Would highly recommend.

Having GMed and Played in that era we will just have to agree to disagree on that front. It didn't do anything for me as a GM but increase my constant need to adjust for the new spells/level/powers etcetera.

But I also respect your right to think it was a great thing.

[icefractal]

And the formula fits well enough since most people are human, and playing a make believe human is a lot easier to try to do than to try and play a make believe {creature} and have it not just be "humans in hats".

But it sounds like it only "solved" it to the extent that you were less able to play {creature}, and that presumably the GM only had {creature} show up rarely enough for the "human in hat"-ness not to be recognizable.

But the thing is, you can already do that, with creatures like Aboleths, Angels, Dragons, etc. So it seems like in one model we have:
* Playable humans
* Non-playable non-humans who are significantly alien.

And in the other model we have:
* Playable humans
* Playable non-humans who might end up resembling humans in hats
* Non-playable non-humans who are significantly alien

Not really seeing the advantage of the first over the second, unless the presence of "humans in hats" is inherently a bad thing that will make the game worse by existing - which I don't consider it to be.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Personally, I don't like playable, alien-in-thought races. Because they'll be played by humans, which means played like humans. It also becomes much harder to rationalize why they're working together with people they cannot understand (or with whom the barriers to understanding are high). Because that's what alien-in-thought means--alien enough that mutual understanding is difficult if it's even possible.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm leaning toward banning the whole "hey guys, what should I do" cross-talk. Make a decision, take your turn.

Please do this for campaign 2. Please.

[1] except prismatic spray that hits 20 people, that sucks to resolve.

Since my C2 character is a half caster, I'll not be doing that again.

Prismatic Spray is clunky to resolve and definitely seems like a failure of design... But somehow I just can't help but love it.

I love it, though I rarely use it.

My players love it. I quail, because it means 2-3 separate rolls and a table lookup for each person hit, none of which you can bulk roll. So it scales really really badly with number of targets, but has a huge aoe (60' cone, really?).

Yeah it is so awesome but most of the time I want to use it one of my allies charges into the area of effect so I have to do something else. That fight with nyx where I was waiting for them was where I wanted to open the ambush with that was spoiled by the usual suspects.

Unpopular GM move: When I see one of my players think too much about their next move or whenever the cross-talk starts, I hold up my hand and start counting down on fingers from 5. We reach 0 = the player hesitates and can only defend this round.

Used only with experienced players, it provides some additional tension to decisions.

Yep. Same. "Make a decision or you dodge this turn" has been heard at our table now and again.

The big thing is back-seat driving and people trying to micro manage other players' characters.

Yeah. I am sure I've fallen into that trap at least once as a player. Must always remain alert to not do that and to stay in my lane.

And chronic indecisiveness. Which is ironic, since the player most prone to that also has the simplest character. He's a melee blender who basically always ends up charging in headlong (a trait which has made him rack up the most KOs of any of the PCs) and straight up attacking.

It's a good thing we are playing over the internet. In person I suggest my body language might give away how much that annoys me, and if it did not the sound of the grinding of my teeth would. (Observation: it ain't just blendomaticblademan who does this ...) The only delay I think I have usually is that I do the old "put the microphone on mute" and not realize it" - usually due to someone important being in the room/kitchen (my spouse) and not wanting to have our conversation bleed into the game. (If only I could get her to play in C2, but that's not happening any time soon).

But it sounds like it only "solved" it to the extent that you were less able to play {creature}, and that presumably the GM only had {creature} show up rarely enough for the "human in hat"-ness not to be recognizable. {snip} Not really seeing the advantage of the first over the second, unless the presence of "humans in hats" is inherently a bad thing that will make the game worse by existing - which I don't consider it to be.

Not inherently bad: it's what makes the game accessible to a broad range of players.

Personally, I don't like playable, alien-in-thought races. Because they'll be played by humans, which means played like humans. It also becomes much harder to rationalize why they're working together with people they cannot understand (or with whom the barriers to understanding are high). Because that's what alien-in-thought means--alien enough that mutual understanding is difficult if it's even possible.

Yeah, which takes us back to humans in hats as "workable" based on who is playing the game.

[JNAProductions]

New Thread was made-we should migrate over to there.

[dafrca]

New Thread was made-we should migrate over to there.

Yes.

[Menji]

Every new edition of D&D was superior to the last one. Even if I still get nostalgic for concepts from AD&D and BECMI occasionally.

Roleplaying games are not automatically about storytelling, collaborative or otherwise.

Alignments as presented in 5e (as part of the personality system) are the best thing to happen to D&D alignment to date.

Orcs and Drow are not racist.

Kevin Siembieda is a "RP" elitist.

Player-Character separation is a myth.

Metagaming is an abused term that's been been used to do more harm than good in TTRPGs.

Edit: 2e Kender were awesome, and 3e/4e halflings were greatly improved from their hobbit ancestry as a direct result.

Every single one of these. Yes.

[Lemmy]

Different races don't have to be completely human to be different. The "humans with hats" isn't bad and in fact makes a lot of sense.

We see similar animals displaying similar behavior while still being completely different species all the time. Who hasn't seen a cutesy video of a lion or tiger acting like house cats?

Hell! Even different breeds of the same species can have different propensity for certain behaviors. Just look at dog breeds. Probably modern humans vs neanderthals too.

In that sense, I think it makes perfect sense fpr orca to be "human, but stronger, dumber and more aggressive", dwarves to be "humans, but short, stout and surly", elves to be "humans, but aloof, proud and patient", etc

It's important to keep in mind that this would be a general rule, not an absolute one. So individuals wouldn't necessarily displays those traits, but societies and cultures should reflect them to some extent.

[Lord Torath]

Just a reminder, folks, we have a new thread right over here!

New Thread was made-we should migrate over to there.