# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  Hasbro <-> UBS Fireside Chat/Webinar - D&D Updates

## SpikeFightwicky

Howdy folks,

I didn't see any other threads on this, so... here we go!

Did anyone catch the Hasbro / UBS fireside chat today?  (  https://kvgo.com/ubs/hasbro-inc-webinar  -> _You don't need an account, but you do have to register.  I can't say for certain... that if you can put ANY info into the registration... and that once you do and hit "Register"... you get taken right to the Webinar Audio  Sounds like an easy thing to test out for anyone interested in listening_ )

The main D&D part starts at the 33 minute mark.  The chat sounds mainly like a standard investor call where they speak about income potential.

Some interesting stats:  they mention that DMs represent 20% of the audience, but they're they account for the largest share of paying players.  No big surprise, but it's somewhat comforting to know that they're aware.  What this means for future materials intended for DMs isn't mentioned, though.  

Another factoid they say is that they feel brand is under-monitized (33:14 minutes).  It then goes on about how DNDBeyond gives them previously inaccessible insight to how players are playing the game, and how it's a good base to figure out future monetization.  They're hoping that by going digital, they'll be able to generate post sale "rewarding experiences" that helps them unlock the kind of recurrent spending environment you see in video games, where more than 70% of sales in video games comes in post-sale.  

So...  I'm not sure what exactly their plan is with DNDBeyond, but there will be a lot of future focus on offering players "rewarding experiences" through post-sale recurring expenditures.  


That being said...  I'm a forever DM in my group, so it doesn't sound like I'm the target for this future environment.  But like...  how does one even go about doing that?  I find it hard to believe they'll resort to a micro-transaction economy for the game (EDIT:  Yeah upon reading the responses and head-slapping moments upon short reflection, even going as far as loot boxes might not be too far-fetched).  Anyways... any thoughts?  I recommend listening to the Webinar!  There's a huge MTG section if that interests you.  Fun fact:  the D&D crossover set they released is the most popular set (I think ever?).  I wonder how their MTG sourcebooks sell!  I'd love a Lorwyn/Shadowmoor book release.

NOTE:  WotC and papa Hasbro are businesses.  This chat shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to people.  I'm interested in speculation about what they might offer as post-sale options.  If it doesn't interest me, I won't buy it, easy as that.  No need to get angry about any of this  :Small Smile:

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## Oramac

> I find it hard to believe they'll resort to a micro-transaction economy for the game.


Heh. I don't find it hard to believe _AT ALL_ that they'll try. I do find it hard to believe that they'll succeed, though. 

I don't have time right now to listen. Will try to grab it tomorrow.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Heh. I don't find it hard to believe _AT ALL_ that they'll try. I do find it hard to believe that they'll succeed, though. 
> 
> I don't have time right now to listen. Will try to grab it tomorrow.


I'd be shocked if they didn't include some form of micro-transaction with the new VTT. Things like content packs, unlocking new dice, new tokens, special effects, etc. All the way up to more predatory means like loot boxes for the VTT.

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## SpikeFightwicky

> I'd be shocked if they didn't include some form of micro-transaction with the new VTT. Things like content packs, unlocking new dice, new tokens, special effects, etc. All the way up to more predatory means like loot boxes for the VTT.


I REALLY hope it's not going to devolve to loot boxes.  They have digital dice sets available now.  I can accept having stuff like "Female Halfling Sorcerer, Male Dragonborn Paladin, etc..." as digital "tokens" to use with the VTT.  I'd hate for it to turn into something like a booster pack, though.  Though now I'm thinking that's exactly what they did (do they still make those?) for the figurines.  I can accept trying to monetize (everyone is nowadays), but loot boxes I hope they don't go there.  As long as I know what I'm getting, I can make the decision on what to buy.  Once it turns into "you MIGHT get what you want after buying X random packs", I'm out.  And this is all hoping I can still play on Roll20.

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## SpikeFightwicky

> Heh. I don't find it hard to believe _AT ALL_ that they'll try. I do find it hard to believe that they'll succeed, though. 
> 
> I don't have time right now to listen. Will try to grab it tomorrow.


Yeah... after more thought it'll definitely be micro-transactions, just hopefully not loot box items.

The problem I have with that is that it makes the space weird for kids who are trying to start up but their parents don't play.  Will the younger crowd be priced out of the hobby if they don't have an option for a monthly account?  I started at 12 years old... even got the PHB/DMG/Monster Manual for my birthday and Christmas.  It was great!  I was playing with my friends a week later.

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## Brookshw

> I'd be shocked if they didn't include some form of micro-transaction with the new VTT. Things like content packs, unlocking new dice, new tokens, special effects, etc. All the way up to more predatory means like loot boxes for the VTT.


Personally I've always considered buying minis to be micro transactions.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> I REALLY hope it's not going to devolve to loot boxes.  They have digital dice sets available now.  I can accept having stuff like "Female Halfling Sorcerer, Male Dragonborn Paladin, etc..." as digital "tokens" to use with the VTT.  I'd hate for it to turn into something like a booster pack, though.  Though now I'm thinking that's exactly what they did (do they still make those?) for the figurines.  I can accept trying to monetize (everyone is nowadays), but loot boxes I hope they don't go there.  As long as I know what I'm getting, I can make the decision on what to buy.  Once it turns into "you MIGHT get what you want after buying X random packs", I'm out.  And this is all hoping I can still play on Roll20.


Yeah. I'd be mostly ok with fixed-content packs of tokens, maps, even possibly premium features like environmental effects (rain, snow, etc). Absolutely *NOT* fine with random loot boxes. Although it affects me very little if it's restricted to OneD&D and the VTT--I have no intent on using either one. I'll stick to 5e and my personal Foundry VTT instance with its one-time license fee and continuing updates. I mean...I pay for AWS hosting because I want to be a special snowflake and am techy enough to do the technical bits. But that's different.

I also expect that using their VTT will have some kind of recurring fee above a free tier, paying for hosting/storage for example. And that's fine, as compute and storage and network charges aren't free.




> Personally I've always considered buying minis to be micro transactions.


Minis...minis are an addiction. At the rate I used to buy them (individually, not so much the booster packs, since I wanted to paint my own), it wasn't a very _micro_ transaction any more at all. Not quite WH plastic crack, but....

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## Brookshw

> Minis...minis are an addiction. At the rate I used to buy them (individually, not so much the booster packs, since I wanted to paint my own), it wasn't a very _micro_ transaction any more at all. Not quite WH plastic crack, but....


Hah! Fair. Gotta feed the plastic addiction.

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## Imbalance

"Under-monetized" means they think they can squeeze even more juice from the lemon.  And that the juice is worth the squeeze.

They're wrong to assume that DnDBeyond is giving them good insight.  I'm sure it's great insight about how DnDB players play and how to squeeze more money out of them, but how much will they actually be able to understand about how offline players are playing and spending by that data?

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## KorvinStarmast

> "Under-monetized" means they think they can squeeze even more juice from the lemon.  And that the juice is worth the squeeze.
> 
> They're wrong to assume that DnDBeyond is giving them good insight.  I'm sure it's great insight about how DnDB players play and how to squeeze more money out of them, but how much will they actually be able to understand about how offline players are playing and spending by that data?


 Two words: cash cow.

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## Dork_Forge

> "Under-monetized" means they think they can squeeze even more juice from the lemon.  And that the juice is worth the squeeze.
> 
> They're wrong to assume that DnDBeyond is giving them good insight.  I'm sure it's great insight about how DnDB players play and how to squeeze more money out of them, but how much will they actually be able to understand about how offline players are playing and spending by that data?


Presumably, they will look at physical sales to reflect that.

Under monetized means everything from making more video games and media to t-shirts, dice and minis. D&D is a brand and the fact is that WotC eat a small part of the pie they own.

Think of how many 3rd party dice companies there are, or stores that sell shirts, stickers etc.

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## sambojin

I'm surprised they don't have a magazine available. I'd probably pay $4-6.95 a month for a digital copy of Dragon magazine. Hell, I'd probably pay $12-16.95 for a hardcopy of the issues I really liked.

Then, as mentioned, include a little section with tokens, adventurer pieces, dungeon board pieces, even card buildings and terrain. Maybe some spell templates and stuff too. Sorta like how White Dwarf used to do little mini-games and Warhammer Quest dungeon pieces and stuff.

Print them out from digital, glue them to some card, and you're good to go. The actual hardcopy version contains actual glossy punchout card pieces for you to use. 4-8 card-piece pages each magazine, so even if it's a little light on pages/ art/ written content, what is there has value. And you always get some fun things to play with, so you always get your toys with every issue 😀

It's a really easy way to make an ecosystem surrounding a product, and a somewhat ongoing revenue stream. It's "Dragon stuff", so not really official-official, or even that well playtested, but you can use it it you want. Draw in all kinds of different hobbyists, even from different sorts of products (I'm ex-GW, because their prices annoyed me. But wotc *isn't* a miniatures company, they *are* a games company that appeals to hobbyists).

Card buildings, modular dungeon pieces and various templates would sell if for me, and I think it'd be great for newer players too. Even monster templates and stuff. All kinds of stuff, with a smattering of rules and stories etc. Like mid 90's- early 2000's white dwarf mixed with earlier Dragon stuff. There was some good things in there, and for what was essentially a wh40k/ whfb advertisement, you kind of felt that you were getting your money's worth.

(These days they could even include some 3d printer models of stuff. Sure, they won't be selling you the model, but they can charge you to let you print it. It's way easier, and far more profitable to do it that way. Almost zero logistics involved. Plus, you've got a huge built-in audience, so you'll get enough buyers that you can undercut the entire 3rd party market. $3-5 per .stl file, and you'd still make heaps of cash. And you don't really have to worry about piracy, because it's just paying an artist or two to make some models, and the rest is profit. Also incredibly synergistic if you're planning on making your own digital tabletop, because you'll need the models and templates made at some point anyway. Why not sell them twice?)

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## Brookshw

> Then, as mentioned, include a little section with tokens, adventurer pieces, dungeon board pieces, even card buildings and terrain. Maybe some spell templates and stuff too. Sorta like how White Dwarf used to do little mini-games and Warhammer Quest dungeon pieces and stuff.
> 
> Print them out from digital, glue them to some card, and you're good to go. The actual hardcopy version contains actual glossy punchout card pieces for you to use.
> 
> It's a really easy way to make an ecosystem surrounding a product, and a somewhat ongoing revenue stream. It's "Dragon stuff", so not really official-official, or even that well playtested, but you can use it if you want.
> 
> Card buildings, modular dungeon pieces and various templates would sell if for me, and I think it'd be great for newer players too. Even monster templates and stuff. All kinds of stuff, with a smattering of rules and stories etc. Like mid 90's- early 2000's white dwarf. There was some good things in there, and for what was essentially a wh40k/ whfb advertisement, you kind of felt that you were getting your money's worth.
> 
> (These days they could even include some 3d printer models of stuff. Sure, they won't be selling you the model, but they can charge you to let you print it. It's way easier, and far more profitable to do it that way. Almost zero logistics involved. Plus, you've got a huge built-in audience, so you'll get enough buyers that you can undercut the entire 3rd party market. $3-5 per .stl file, and you'd still make heaps of cash. And you don't really have to worry about piracy, because it's just paying an artist or two to make some models, and the rest is profit)


All true, they can't create an artificial ecosystem with that and are stuck with 3rd party competitors, there's no shortage of companies out there already in that sphere, and doing it for a pretty cheap price (if not free). Since they can't block competition in the physical sphere via IP, they're struck trying to force people into their virtual space which they can control....but, they also can't walk away from physical products as that's definitely a good portion of their market. At best, they can try and drop their prices so competitors opt out, but if they do it to artificially low levels they start risking antitrust lawsuits. Their planned strategy does seem like their best bet given the circumstances, I'm just skeptical how much it'll matter.

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## Telesphoros

13 Million registered DnDBeyond accounts.

39k people filled out the OneD&D survey.

Feels like a very small minority that's driving OneD&D so far. Doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies that WotC/Hasbro will be heading into a bright future. Especially after this fireside chat.


I hope they've learned from TSR mistakes of the past and ramping up everything so fast, but I'm having some doubts... 350 new employees just in the last year? Purchasing DnDBeyond and sinking lots of resources into a VTT that presumably needs to be ready by the time OneD&D releases? More physical book releases every year with most being the slip case variety here recently and now coupled with digital bundles and still making missteps like the Hadozee? Big production movies and wanting to do TV shows too? More and more swag? More and more video games in production? Paid 4 billion dollars for Entertainment One (which is like the same price Disney paid for Star Wars, and Marvel come to think of it) and are already scurrying to sell off parts? And let's not even talk about Hasbro's stock tanking since Chris C. took over... and on and on. Books for their different setting seems like the only thing still in the slow lane.

Since 5E's release D&D was making a lot of gains to their player base and significantly increasing their net worth. That seems to be changing though this past year, and now instead of letting that happen more or less organically, they're taking a rapid fire approach going in a dozen different directions at once... It feels like they want D&D to match M:tG, making them both billion dollar companies, but they're pushing the D&D side of the house along at warp speed. 

And if they're not careful that fireside chat could turn into a dumpster fire real quick.

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## sambojin

Pretty hard to have an anti-trust lawsuit against "you can buy this additional content if you want it". Especially when you're printing it yourself on the hardware you want on the digital version.


On the magazine thing, it's pretty easy to do in some ways. It's direct-to-consumer, not in newsagencies, so you could probably lower printing costs a bit by having the slotta card pages printed seperately from the magazine itself. Then chuck them all in an envelope with a copy of the magazine and ship them off.

The digital copy that you print yourself has way lower logistical overheads, but a 6-12month subscription of the hardcopy version would make for a great gift.

Plus, as mentioned, why not sell the VTT assets that you're creating anyway a couple of times over? Some people will never migrate to digital. Doesn't mean there's not a revenue stream and ecosystem around your product to be had from those players.

Plus, easy craft-days with kids is fun, to rope them in early. Not only are you doing/ making something from a magazine, you/ they get to use them in a game too, for hours afterwards. It's a pretty easy way of crossing the "what's this demon-game with dice?" barrier, to the "let's make a nice little chapel/church diorama with my kid" on the "this game ain't so bad" type thing as well. Requires a craft knife, some glue, and an weekend morning/afternoon.

Plus, it gives some physical item from the game you play, so when people ask "what's that?", you can explain what DnD is. Word of mouth stuff, for people that would have never otherwise even see it or heard about it, on the internet or in real life.
Doesn't even need to differentiate "theatre of the mind" and "boardgame/ grid" style play of DnD, sometimes just having a terrain/ building/ playing piece on the table helps people visualise the scene in their mind.

(They could even do the hardcopy card gubbins on MtG card stock, with the same printing company doing it. Lower costs, lower shipping weight, and that stuff is surprisingly durable. Plus, they've got all the random stuff to add sparkles and FX onto card bits already, for magic'y or spooky or holy stuff. Just punchout dies needed (or, just tell your buyers to use a craft knife to cut them out. That works too).

Easy, random stuff to feature at conventions too, or on YouTube videos. With modelling conversions and tips as well, using the card toys as a base).

((I mean, seriously, having a diecut-tab-punchout cardbase, or craftknife cutout ruler-edge bendable+glueable-together thing off MtG card stock, of a Stable/ Barn with a fence from the card stock, with 4 ponies, 3 cows/oxen, 3 sheep, 3 riding horses, one grumpy warhorse, and three either happy/ confused/ scary unicorns as the creatures, is a bloody product in of itself. Include a humanoid boy and a girl creature as well. (+Two doggies and one big doggo, and maybe one cat as well. Cover every base). This should be pretty easy to do. Would work well for DnD as well. Horse thievery, information gathering, goblin attacks, defend the farm, the road is blocked (by farm animals) as the bad-guys attack, adding stabling to the Inn/Tavern from the previous issue, geez I want to cast Conjure Beast/ summon celestial but don't have any spare miniatures. Whatever. But still cool stuff anyway. Random crap like that, every issue, but also pretty kid/family friendly in what it is, even if there are spooky ghosts for Halloween, or both good and mean Orcs and towers and stuff as well. Just, lots of stuff, and templates alongside as well.
Heaps of other proper 1dnd content, but definitely always useful, regardless. Worthwhile buying every issue, for all the other content other than that, but every single copy gives you fun games and toys))

(((Add hay bales from the barn to the horsie's food bin, before the horsies run away! Unicorns draw in, scare off, or make some random thing happen. Doggos woof. Big scary Dire Wolf can be a thing, even with unicorns trying to steal your horsies to the neverwild. Cats add +1/-1 to rolls. Make a mini-game from it if you want. Teach pseudo-mechanics! Would take like 2-4 pages of a magazine's written content for a laugh, maybe a Kids Corner thing, and about 2-4 pages of cardstock of otherwise very useful terrain and pseudo-miniatures, with plenty of room to spare for hay bales, anything else, etc.
Mini-games are awesome, if you're not trapped into them in the actual game you want to play, and they're actually an enhancement to play alongside those you care about that don't care about the main thingy you do. Plus, I would so play that mini-game sometimes anyway amongst friends.
That's the "farm set", as issue 2 or 3 of the magazine, with anything before or after then being sweet to bolt it along through. But they all come with heaps of stuff and stories and characters and adventure hooks. But every issue does have a fun little mini-game as well, so it's completely fun even as a 1-off issue of the magazine.)))


((((I'm pretty sure you can laser-cut even MtG cardstock stuff pretty quickly these days, but also half-cut them for bends/tabs, so it makes it really easy on the consumer to glue them together for buildings and scenery. It might not be a craft knife necessary thing. A bit of glue is fine))))

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## Damon_Tor

> I find it hard to believe they'll resort to a micro-transaction economy for the game.


WotC practically invented PTW lootboxes, pre-internet. That's the MTG business model.

"Yeah, we know silvery barbs is very strong, but it's balanced by its rarity. There's only a 1/200 chance to get it in a Strixhaven Spellbook Pack, or 1/40 in a Strixhaven Deluxe Spellbook Pack. That puts it at the same rarity as spells like Simulacrum and Spiritual Weapon! Remember guys, Strixhaven Spellboxes are on sale right now for just 1500 DungeonBucks, but this sale only lasts until the end of the month, so get them now!"

Buckle up.

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## Brookshw

> Pretty hard to have an anti-trust lawsuit against "you can buy this additional content if you want it". Especially when you're printing it yourself on the hardware you want on the digital version.


Agreed, the issue would be of they were artificially reducing prices to drive competitors out of the market for physical products (terrain, tokens, minis, etc.)

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## SpikeFightwicky

> WotC practically invented PTW lootboxes, pre-internet. That's the MTG business model.
> 
> "Yeah, we know silvery barbs is very strong, but it's balanced by its rarity. There's only a 1/200 chance to get it in a Strixhaven Spellbook Pack, or 1/40 in a Strixhaven Deluxe Spellbook Pack. That puts it at the same rarity as spells like Simulacrum and Spiritual Weapon! Remember guys, Strixhaven Spellboxes are on sale right now for just 1500 DungeonBucks, but this sale only lasts until the end of the month, so get them now!"
> 
> Buckle up.


I've been out of MtG for so long I forget how the whole booster cracking went.  You're 100% correct, though.  And the MtG definitely knows how to do FOMO products and marketing (I remember going nuts over the "Secret Lair" releases back in the day).

Another question I have:  it sounds like they're going to be aggressively ramping up monetization.  But D&DOne doesn't come out until 2024.  What are they going to do in the year and half-ish before it releases?  Is the VTT going to be released before D&DOne?  I had assumed it's being released in tandem, but I feel like it's where they're putting their eggs.

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## Gignere

> I've been out of MtG for so long I forget how the whole booster cracking went.  You're 100% correct, though.  And the MtG definitely knows how to do FOMO products and marketing (I remember going nuts over the "Secret Lair" releases back in the day).
> 
> Another question I have:  it sounds like they're going to be aggressively ramping up monetization.  But D&DOne doesn't come out until 2024.  What are they going to do in the year and half-ish before it releases?  Is the VTT going to be released before D&DOne?  I had assumed it's being released in tandem, but I feel like it's where they're putting their eggs.


Nothing wrong with monetization, its more incentive for them to make better products to sell. Everyone wants to make more dough including Hasbro. As long as they are willing to invest in D&D its probably better for the RPG ecosystem in the long run.

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## Particle_Man

> Yeah... after more thought it'll definitely be micro-transactions, just hopefully not loot box items.
> 
> The problem I have with that is that it makes the space weird for kids who are trying to start up but their parents don't play.  Will the younger crowd be priced out of the hobby if they don't have an option for a monthly account?  I started at 12 years old... even got the PHB/DMG/Monster Manual for my birthday and Christmas.  It was great!  I was playing with my friends a week later.


Presumably it will be cheap/free to play with the basic stuff and only cost more if you want to play the new hotness.  So a standard human champion fighter with the soldier background, elf evoker wizard, etc., wouldnt cost more, but after a while the limited choices might seem a little dull and well, you see something you can ask mom and dad to get for you online for your birthday . . .

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## animewatcha

One way to start this monetization is to restore the 3.5e archives in full and maybe charge 1 buck a month per account for access. only 30k people pay to access it due to existence of wayback machine? That's still 30k a month that can go towards getting 5e to do releases like 3.5e did. Plethora of books and writers and staff that had a passion for lore and stuff. Mechanics and sterf from 3.5 definitely needed work, but so much stuff to draw upon.

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## sambojin

$30k isn't enough. And most of them are 3.5e users using the Wayback machine multiple times in any given month.

Not saying it wouldn't be a revenue stream, but why would you do it, as a company about to release a new product? Harsh but true. That's less than they pay a single employee in a year (I hope). I might go for a job with WotC soon. They don't really seem to know how to leverage income streams and generate new ones, in the short and longer term.

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## animewatcha

Can be easier/lazier to access. Essentially 'free money'. If google is anything to go by, then an average salary is $94,663.  Lower or higher depending upon department. Customer Service Rep around 39k (okay we all need to start working for WOTC now). 
Easy for company to pull subclasses (prestige classes), feats, monsters, etc. from 3.5e switch them up to 5e and pad the book releases.

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## Cheesegear

> Some interesting stats: they mention that DMs represent 20% of the audience, but they're they account for the largest share of paying players.


I've been saying something similar for years.




> What this means for future materials intended for DMs isn't mentioned, though.


My guess would be more stuff along the lines of Volo's and Mord's.




> I'm not sure what exactly their plan is with DNDBeyond


As a DM; I hate D&D Beyond.

It encourages - if not necessitates - phones and mobile devices not just on the table, but constantly in your hands with your eyes down.




> I'm a forever DM in my group, so it doesn't sound like I'm the target for this future environment.


My biggest concern with the future of D&D, is _will_ they just make it into a video game? ...Or rather, like one? Will they ever allow players to play D&D, without a DM? After all, DMs only make up 20% of the audience. And yes, I am a Forever DM, but since I'm honest, I would also love to be a player. If I never DM'd ever again, would I still want to play D&D? ...Yes. If there was a DM-less D&D, that I could play with my friends, would I play it? Yes.

But, when I think about what DM-less D&D with my friends looks like...Yeah that's a video game. I already do that. D&D - and all TTRPGs, really - are simply something else. But I think it's the 'something else' that people kind of want to move away from.

I vaguely recall that GW once said that _Fallout_ - the video game - was Warhammer 40K's - the miniatures game - competition in the market. On the surface, that sounds ridiculous - they're not even remotely the same! But the more I think about it, the more I understand it; People would rather play Fallout, than play Warhammer 40K. Why?

People don't want to play D&D...They want to...Just LARP, I think. But LARPing isn't really what D&D is. But it's not a video game, either. It's sort of both. It's an RP-G. Those words actually mean something. In modern vernacular RPG mostly means 'You can choose how you level up, sort of, within the bounds that have been coded for.' 

Mostly how long before D&D just becomes a less good version of _DDO_ or _Neverwinter_? Because it's trying to be both D&D and a video game and being neither.

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## MoiMagnus

Hopefully, the D&D film is a success, and they start doing crazy money from some "D&D-CU", so that adding predatory monetisation systems to the TTRPG becomes too risky PR-wise compared to the money they can make out of it.

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## Sulicius

I dont think they will ever end the D&D TTRPG. We have the books, we have a solid edition and we have friends who want to play. 

People who are more interested in video games will play video games, and some will still do both.

WotC wont come into your house and take what you have away.

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## Cheesegear

> Hopefully, the D&D film is a success, and they start doing crazy money from some "D&D-CU"


I don't see that that would change anything, except to make more D&D movies.
A great, _great_ example are Comic Book Movies. The MCU went insane, and the DCEU have pulled some decent numbers. Many, many millions of dollarydoos into the pockets of filmmakers.
The Marvel and DC comics? With very, very few exceptions...Those are dying.

Movie watchers absolutely did not convert into comic readers - let alone comic _buyers_.

Whoa...Did you see that Owlbear in the D&D movie. That's so cool. I could watch that bit over and over and over again.
Oh? You like Owlbears, ey? Wanna actually play some D&D?
You mean that game for nerds about maths? Pfft. No thanks.

You know the old social media saying; 5000 Likes and not a single sale.

I just don't think a success - if any - of the D&D Movie converts into players of the D&D game. Not without significant changes - at least. And I don't think D&Done's changes make the game more fun to _play_ - I do, however, think D&Done will be more fun to _watch_, y'know, like on Streams.




> WotC wont come into your house and take what you have away.


No. But it does dilute the future.
Amazon's _Rings of Power_ didn't "take away" Jackson's _Lord of Rings_...It just changed what _Lord of the Rings_ meant to people. But this is a whole new conversation about brand dilution.

If you have a very, very, very stable D&D group that isn't going anywhere and all of you love whatever rules you play by, great.
If you have player turnover for any reason, the brand not being diluted, matters.

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## Sulicius

> No. But it does dilute the future.
> Amazon's _Rings of Power_ didn't "take away" Jackson's _Lord of Rings_...It just changed what _Lord of the Rings_ meant to people. But this is a whole new conversation about brand dilution.
> 
> If you have a very, very, very stable D&D group that isn't going anywhere and all of you love whatever rules you play by, great.
> If you have player turnover for any reason, the brand not being diluted, matters.


This is a pretty bleak view of the hobby, I think. 

I can only speak for myself, but even The Hobbit did not take away from how I love the LotR trilogy, and how I rewatch them every year. 

In a TTRPG, the biggest enjoyment does not come from the system, but from the experience at the table or, these days, online.

D&D has survived when it was barely scraping by, and it will survive without an MCU-like plan. If your enjoyment depends on the purity (my words) of the brand, then I dont think you will find joy in this hobby whatever path they choose.

I just hope they dont make the books into some lootbox like nonsense. I dont want my players to feel like they should spend money to have fun in this hobby. It is 100% what Hasbro would want.

----------


## Sigreid

Doesn't matter.  I've already checked out of their new content.  Just hoping that DnD1 gets its own section in the forums soon.

----------


## JackPhoenix

> D&DOne doesn't come out until 2024.  What are they going to do in the year and half-ish before it releases?  Is the VTT going to be released before D&DOne?


Presumably pray to whatever higher power they believe in that the current crisis goes away. I work in a similar sector (toys and tabletop games), and 2022 was *not* good for the industry. The Covid lockdowns are gone, so people aren't sitting in their homes with nothing better to do. With the inflation, people are less inclined to spend money for entertainment when they need to pay bills first. And the production costs are going up (2 years ago, a pallet of material from China cost 2500 EUR. Now it's 18k EUR) in a way that can't easily be offset by incresing the sale price... less people are buying as it is, making the product even more expensive won't help. While compared to company where I work, WotC has the advantage of the brand and the ability to sell non-physical product, the profit margins are going down everywhere.

While my company made roughly the same amount in sales as in the last two years, that's only half of the story... the actual profit is much lower. Last year, we made over 38 millions sets of various games, puzzles, and other products. This years, we're down to less than 32 millions, because the demand simply isn't there anymore.

----------


## Xervous

If were talking lifestyle brands its a rather short step to get D&D monopoly now that I think about it.

----------


## Cheesegear

> In a TTRPG, the biggest enjoyment does not come from the system, but from the experience at the table or, these days, online.


Agreed.




> D&D has survived when it was barely scraping by, and it will survive without an MCU-like plan. If your enjoyment depends on the purity (my words) of the brand, then I donÂt think you will find joy in this hobby whatever path they choose.


My enjoyment depends on cohesiveness of the community. I could tell you my thoughts on fracturing a community (of which brand dilution is a contributing factor), but we already did that thread.

EDIT: Speaking of Brand Dilution and fracturing communities; How's _Magic the Gathering_? That's what started this whole thing, right?

----------


## Oramac

> As a DM; I hate D&D Beyond.
> 
> It encourages - if not necessitates - phones and mobile devices not just on the table, but constantly in your hands with your eyes down.


Agreed, 100%. I've been _this close_ to banning electronics at my table for this reason, and I take notes on a laptop!

----------


## Psyren

> Howdy folks,
> 
> I didn't see any other threads on this, so... here we go!
> 
> Did anyone catch the Hasbro / UBS fireside chat today?  (  https://kvgo.com/ubs/hasbro-inc-webinar  -> _You don't need an account, but you do have to register.  I can't say for certain... that if you can put ANY info into the registration... and that once you do and hit "Register"... you get taken right to the Webinar Audio  Sounds like an easy thing to test out for anyone interested in listening_ )
> 
> The main D&D part starts at the 33 minute mark.  The chat sounds mainly like a standard investor call where they speak about income potential.


Thanks for linking this! I follow things like investor calls as my day job so I'm always interested in where the business side and play side of the hobby intersect.




> So...  I'm not sure what exactly their plan is with DNDBeyond, but there will be a lot of future focus on offering players "rewarding experiences" through post-sale recurring expenditures.


This shouldn't be too surprising as they're doing this right now. DnDBeyond sells things like portraits as well as character sheet and dice skins that are clearly aimed at players. Pretty much anything you can visually look at while playing is a potential vehicle for cosmetics and therefore monetization, which also explains why theyre so eager to get a VTT of some kind up and running. Not only will everyone at the table be looking at that, you'll have situations where some players in your playgroup have cosmetics you don't and vice-versa, and "seeing them in action" will entice people to spend on things they weren't previously aware existed.




> That being said...  I'm a forever DM in my group, so it doesn't sound like I'm the target for this future environment.  But like...  how does one even go about doing that?  I find it hard to believe they'll resort to a micro-transaction economy for the game (EDIT:  Yeah upon reading the responses and head-slapping moments upon short reflection, even going as far as loot boxes might not be too far-fetched).  Anyways... any thoughts?  I recommend listening to the Webinar!  There's a huge MTG section if that interests you.  Fun fact:  the D&D crossover set they released is the most popular set (I think ever?).  I wonder how their MTG sourcebooks sell!  I'd love a Lorwyn/Shadowmoor book release.


I don't think lootboxes are likely. Even putting all the backlash they've received in the gaming sphere in recent years, lots of jurisdictions are legislating against them now; their heyday was roughly in the 2015-2019 window. (And yes, Magic uses them as boosters are roughly analogous, but the big difference with Magic is that you can sell or trade your cards to other people.)




> "Under-monetized" means they think they can squeeze even more juice from the lemon.  And that the juice is worth the squeeze.
> 
> They're wrong to assume that DnDBeyond is giving them good insight.  I'm sure it's great insight about how DnDB players play and how to squeeze more money out of them, but how much will they actually be able to understand about how offline players are playing and spending by that data?


No matter what you think of the kinds of players who use DnDBeyond vs those who don't - this is a far, far better source of real play data for them than any other they've ever had. Moreover, as they alluded to on the call, DnDBeyond is used even by players that are not playing on a VTT.




> I'm surprised they don't have a magazine available. I'd probably pay $4-6.95 a month for a digital copy of Dragon magazine. Hell, I'd probably pay $12-16.95 for a hardcopy of the issues I really liked.


I'm glad they don't - that would mean either paywalling the few articles they make, paywalling UAs, or using the magazine to release additional player content like subclasses and spells just like they did in prior editions in order to justify its cost. And just like dragon magazine content of old, that would shift the focus back to quantity over quality.




> 13 Million registered DnDBeyond accounts.
> 
> 39k people filled out the OneD&D survey.
> 
> Feels like a very small minority that's driving OneD&D so far. Doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies that WotC/Hasbro will be heading into a bright future. Especially after this fireside chat.


A small minority drive _every_ playtest. A lot of people just like to sit back and wait for a finished product. That doesn't mean the ones that are participating are not statistically significant.




> No. But it does dilute the future.
> Amazon's _Rings of Power_ didn't "take away" Jackson's _Lord of Rings_...It just changed what _Lord of the Rings_ meant to people. But this is a whole new conversation about brand dilution.


It also vastly increased the audience who are exposed to Tolkien's work outside of the main trilogy. How many more people now have an inkling of what a "silmaril" is, or know about Numenor? How many new people decided to buy the books? Regardless of what you think of the series itself, every fan should be celebrating about the effect these shows have to broaden the reach of the original.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Nothing wrong with monetization, its more incentive for them to make better products to sell. Everyone wants to make more dough including Hasbro. As long as they are willing to invest in D&D its probably better for the RPG ecosystem in the long run.


I wouldn't conclude that it will cause them to make "better" products necessarily. Just because some people are willing and able to spend more money on the hobby, it doesn't mean that catering to them will result in a better product. It will result in a product that can generate more money.

If the future of D&D is that we're all playing teleporting furries with fly speeds and swords that shoot lasers out of the blades, I would not consider that to be a "better" product.

----------


## Psyren

> I wouldn't conclude that it will cause them to make "better" products necessarily. Just because some people are willing and able to spend more money on the hobby, it doesn't mean that catering to them will result in a better product. It will result in a product that can generate more money.


It doesn't mean the product will be worse either. We have to judge the product on its own merits, not based on vague and nebulous fears.




> If the future of D&D is that we're all playing teleporting furries with fly speeds and swords that shoot lasers out of the blades, I would not consider that to be a "better" product.


I highly doubt we'll "all" be doing any such thing  :Small Tongue:  Remember, Human is the most popular race even now.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> It doesn't mean the product will be worse either. We have to judge the product on its own merits, not based on vague and nebulous fears.


Mostly fair, but I wouldn't say fears are vague and nebulous either.

We all expect a business to want to generate profit; it's the point. But designing the product in such a way as to generate more profit doesn't always go hand in hand with making the product better, is my point. Intuitively it would have to, because people have to want to buy the product in order for the profit to occur. 

Diablo Immortal is, according to some people, a very good game. But the implementation of its monetization has made it infamous now.

I don't know as much about the ttrpg world as most of you, so I don't think that things can get to those levels of crazy, but I don't know. I wouldn't mind paying more on the hobby if it made sense to me, but I already don't like how magical and gamey the game is becoming, so we'll see.



> I highly doubt we'll "all" be doing any such thing  Remember, Human is the most popular race even now.


_*clutches security blanket*_ I hope that's the case...

----------


## Psyren

> Diablo Immortal is, according to some people, a very good game. But the implementation of its monetization has made it infamous now.


DI is an extreme that D&D doesn't have to go anywhere near (and I would argue, couldn't.) To me this is like worrying about the future of roll20 because Diablo Immortal exists.




> I don't know as much about the ttrpg world as most of you, so I don't think that things can get to those levels of crazy, but I don't know. I wouldn't mind paying more on the hobby if it made sense to me, but I already don't like how magical and gamey the game is becoming, so we'll see.


I don't know what "magical and gamey" even mean, much less why they are supposedly negatives for a game about magic  :Small Tongue:

----------


## Joe the Rat

My big question is whether they will continue to license and support 3PVTTs.  We did get by for a fair while without integrated official content, but I will tell you having an integrated (and up to date errata'd) rules compendium is _nice_.




> 13 Million registered DnDBeyond accounts.
> 
> 39k people filled out the OneD&D survey.


Which gives your reported percentages a CI99 of about +/- of 0.65%  Pollsters wish they could get that tight.

The real question comes down to representation - is there something qualitatively different about the 1DD respondents than the DDB users, or the overall player base ...which _I guess_ you could try and surmise from all of their previous user surveys.

I'm going to guess that DDB users trend younger than the overall player population. Which is probably not a bad thing for these purposes.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> DI is an extreme that D&D doesn't have to go anywhere near (and I would argue, couldn't.) To me this is like worrying about the future of roll20 because Diablo Immortal exists.


And to me it's acknowledging that monetization has pitfalls that can make things go sideways pretty quickly, and it's not unreasonable to be concerned about how it will be implemented in a space that is essentially going to be a new frontier really. DI isn't the only example and is at one end of a spectrum that does exist.

Obviously there are people that will be apprehensive about what they're going to do, and there are people that think WotC has never and will never make a bad decision so... to each their own.



> I don't know what "magical and gamey" even mean, much less why they are supposedly negatives for a game about magic


I'm not surprised, but suffice it to say that I don't think it's a game "about magic" and I think that there can certainly be a point where there's too much of any one thing.

----------


## Psyren

> And to me it's acknowledging that monetization has pitfalls that can make things go sideways pretty quickly, and it's not unreasonable to be concerned about how it will be implemented in a space that is essentially going to be a new frontier really. DI isn't the only example and is at one end of a spectrum that does exist.


Concern about how the future could be monetized is certainly reasonable. What I _don't_ think is reasonable is immediately jumping all the way to not just a mobile game, but a AAA mobile game with some of the worst excesses not just of its medium, but of all gaming everywhere - and one whose very gameplay model is incompatible with D&D.




> I'm not surprised, but suffice it to say that I don't think it's a game "about magic" and I think that there can certainly be a point where there's too much of any one thing.


Well, if you're not willing to be more detailed about what you mean by that, that's fine - but it makes it difficult to see where you're coming from.




> Which gives your reported percentages a CI99 of about +/- of 0.65%  Pollsters wish they could get that tight.
> 
> The real question comes down to representation - is there something qualitatively different about the 1DD respondents than the DDB users, or the overall player base ...which _I guess_ you could try and surmise from all of their previous user surveys.
> 
> I'm going to guess that DDB users trend younger than the overall player population. Which is probably not a bad thing for these purposes.


Agreed with pretty much all of this.

----------


## Oramac

> I'm going to guess that DDB users trend younger than the overall player population. Which is probably not a bad thing for these purposes.


This is probably true, but there's (at least) one other MAJOR way that DDB users differ from the overall player population: they use DDB. Which gives a great representation of the people who are most likely to like and use a VTT and digital media, and absolutely zero representation of people who don't. 

This was brought up in the UA thread (several pages back, now). It's extremely difficult to get a survey of both groups, especially one that is anonymous enough to attract many respondents, but protected enough to prevent spamming.

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> Thanks for linking this! I follow things like investor calls as my day job so I'm always interested in where the business side and play side of the hobby intersect.


Glad I could provide!  I'm paying a lot of attention to MtG lately and didn't notice a thread about the D&D side of things.  And yeah, it's very interesting hearing about the financial side and the different lingo!  I work in IT and it's basically a different vocabulary altogether when you're addressing different groups.  It's interesting that the whole webinar was hosted (I think they hosted it?) by UBS!  Not sure if that means they have lots of investors, shareholders and/or money in Switzerland.




> This shouldn't be too surprising as they're doing this right now. DnDBeyond sells things like portraits as well as character sheet and dice skins that are clearly aimed at players. Pretty much anything you can visually look at while playing is a potential vehicle for cosmetics and therefore monetization, which also explains why theyre so eager to get a VTT of some kind up and running. Not only will everyone at the table be looking at that, you'll have situations where some players in your playgroup have cosmetics you don't and vice-versa, and "seeing them in action" will entice people to spend on things they weren't previously aware existed.
> 
> I don't think lootboxes are likely. Even putting all the backlash they've received in the gaming sphere in recent years, lots of jurisdictions are legislating against them now; their heyday was roughly in the 2015-2019 window. (And yes, Magic uses them as boosters are roughly analogous, but the big difference with Magic is that you can sell or trade your cards to other people.)


I feel like lootboxes are a "worst case scenario".  I don't think they'll go that route, but I'm not sure.  They mention their monetization inspiration is the video game eco-system, and that has everything from micro-transations, macro-transactions, battle/season passes and gambling loot boxes.  Back in 3.0/3.5 I spent LOTS on their "table top creature booster boxes", so there's definitely a history of that kind of thing in WotC's outside of the digital sphere (I think they did something similar for 5e?).  But unless Hasbro gets VERY desperate (which I also doubt at this point in time, at least), I don't think they'll go that route (knocking on wood with my fingers crossed  :Small Big Grin:  )

I know they'll be trying out different ways to monetize with DDB, but it's their inspiration from video games that has me a bit apprehensive.

And really....  D&D Monopoly would be awesome!  You can have one version per "plane"  :Small Big Grin:

----------


## Telesphoros

> A small minority drive _every_ playtest. A lot of people just like to sit back and wait for a finished product. That doesn't mean the ones that are participating are not statistically significant.



Obviously true, although I would have thought more would have shown up for the playtesting the last version of D&D. Especially when hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the playtest material. 





> Which gives your reported percentages a CI99 of about +/- of 0.65%  Pollsters wish they could get that tight.
> 
> The real question comes down to representation - is there something qualitatively different about the 1DD respondents than the DDB users, or the overall player base ...which _I guess_ you could try and surmise from all of their previous user surveys.
> 
> I'm going to guess that DDB users trend younger than the overall player population. Which is probably not a bad thing for these purposes.



Yeah, I think that's a fair point. They said that 80% of D&D players are casual in their interactions after all. I just hope they're getting a nice broad spectrum of representation of the player base so the finished product will be welcomed by the majority of said player base. Basically I'm hoping those that respond to the surveys aren't just a niche vocal minority.

----------


## Phhase

> Another factoid they say is that they feel brand is under-monitized (33:14 minutes).  It then goes on about how DNDBeyond gives them previously inaccessible insight to how players are playing the game, and how it's a good base to figure out future monetization.  They're hoping that by going digital, they'll be able to generate post sale "rewarding experiences" that helps them unlock the kind of recurrent spending environment you see in video games, where more than 70% of sales in video games comes in post-sale.  
> 
> So...  I'm not sure what exactly their plan is with DNDBeyond, but there will be a lot of future focus on offering players "rewarding experiences" through post-sale recurring expenditures.


So, this is where we're going, huh? Words fail to accurately describe my loathing and contempt.

----------


## Psyren

> Glad I could provide!  I'm paying a lot of attention to MtG lately and didn't notice a thread about the D&D side of things.  And yeah, it's very interesting hearing about the financial side and the different lingo!  I work in IT and it's basically a different vocabulary altogether when you're addressing different groups.  It's interesting that the whole webinar was hosted (I think they hosted it?) by UBS!  Not sure if that means they have lots of investors, shareholders and/or money in Switzerland.


They've hosted other fireside chats with other big corporations, e.g. Uber and Accenture. I wouldn't read too much into it beyond that they have the infrastructure and knowhow for this sort of thing.

Speaking personally I'll discuss the lootbox thing if we have any credible indication they're considering that route, it just comes off as alarmist to me otherwise.




> This is probably true, but there's (at least) one other MAJOR way that DDB users differ from the overall player population: they use DDB. Which gives a great representation of the people who are most likely to like and use a VTT and digital media, and absolutely zero representation of people who don't. 
> 
> This was brought up in the UA thread (several pages back, now). It's extremely difficult to get a survey of both groups, especially one that is anonymous enough to attract many respondents, but protected enough to prevent spamming.


This is true. However, concluding it is a _problem_ requires assuming that "people unwilling to use DDB or a VTT" represent a material proportion of the larger "people who play D&D in 2022" population.

I won't go so far as to say that polling the former won't yield any useful insights; however, devising a means to do so in large enough numbers to be useful would likely require resources that I think could be better used elsewhere.




> Obviously true, although I would have thought more would have shown up for the playtesting the last version of D&D. Especially when hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the playtest material.


Do we know how many downloaded this version vs. the last one? We got a number for the survey respondents, sure, but I'm willing to bet the number of people willing to sit through a lengthy survey are a fraction of the whole who read the materials.

----------


## Sigreid

I will say that it could be good for digital content customers if they can buy just what they want in th future.  I.e. "I don't want the SCAG, but I can just buy the bladesinger out of it, and I do want that".

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> They've hosted other fireside chats with other big corporations, e.g. Uber and Accenture. I wouldn't read too much into it beyond that they have the infrastructure and knowhow for this sort of thing.


Ah, interesting.  So it's more of like a "guest" thing.  Random?  




> Speaking personally I'll discuss the lootbox thing if we have any credible indication they're considering that route, it just comes off as alarmist to me otherwise.


Considering you can currently order booster boxes of random physical D&D figurines direct from their website, I don't find the idea that they might consider doing the same thing in a virtual space alarmist.  But to each their own!




> This is true. However, concluding it is a _problem_ requires assuming that "people unwilling to use DDB or a VTT" represent a material proportion of the larger "people who play D&D in 2022" population.
> 
> I won't go so far as to say that polling the former won't yield any useful insights; however, devising a means to do so in large enough numbers to be useful would likely require resources that I think could be better used elsewhere.
> 
> Do we know how many downloaded this version vs. the last one? We got a number for the survey respondents, sure, but I'm willing to bet the number of people willing to sit through a lengthy survey are a fraction of the whole who read the materials.


How did they operate for "D&D Next"?  They would have had to do the same thing that time to poll people (I'll admit I was in a D&D lull at the time... I assume it was similar in that they released playtest materials online for feedback?)

----------


## Oramac

> This is true. However, concluding it is a _problem_ requires assuming that "people unwilling to use DDB or a VTT" represent a material proportion of the larger "people who play D&D in 2022" population.


Damn near impossible to know for sure, but depending on your source, the number of normal tabletop players is anywhere from 9 to 50 million. Even if we use 9 million (which I think is low, but whatever), that's still a large enough percentage of the 13 million DDB accounts to make it worthwhile. And that assumes that NONE of the DDB accounts are duplicates. 




> devising a means to do so in large enough numbers to be useful would likely require resources that I think could be better used elsewhere.


Also true, though saddening. I think the responses from those people would put all of this One D&D stuff in a _VERY_ different light for WOTC.

EDIT: here's a video (damn videos) detailing EXACTLY this issue. Even for those of us that don't like videos, it's worth watching (and it's only 6 minutes long).

----------


## Jervis

Best speculation on dnd beyond and monetization. Im going to go out on a limb and say that the dmsguild license is going to be the base of selling official homebrew on dndbeyond going forward. Probably a option for creators to sell their homebrew there with direct integration into the game. Personally im extremely uninterested in dealing with that horrible license and intend to keep making my stuff OGL compliant (assuming that remains unmared by corporate interference) since im not a fan of how it takes away creator freedom in exchange for the ability to reference existing spells.

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> So, this is where we're going, huh? Words fail to accurately describe my loathing and contempt.


I do understand the sentiment, though I'm holding out for the monetization to be in a non-predatory form.  It does seem ominous, though we're not sure exactly how far it will go.  I mean... they already have options on DNDBeyond like virtual dice sets and such.  If it's just cosmetic customization stuff like that, not so bad.  If it goes further, I guess we'll have to see what their plan is in the long run for monetization.  Definitely eyebrow raising at the minimum (with their "video game economies as inspiration" statement).

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> Best speculation on dnd beyond and monetization. Im going to go out on a limb and say that the dmsguild license is going to be the base of selling official homebrew on dndbeyond going forward. Probably a option for creators to sell their homebrew there with direct integration into the game. Personally im extremely uninterested in dealing with that horrible license and intend to keep making my stuff OGL compliant (assuming that remains unmared by corporate interference) since im not a fan of how it takes away creator freedom in exchange for the ability to reference existing spells.


Not sure if you have any knowledge (or if not, if anyone else does), but are they able to de-license sites like Roll20 from hosting 5e D&D games?  If I can still play on Roll20, I don't really have a horse in this race, since I'm not too interested at this point in a full 3d VTT.  I have little to no OGL knowledge beyond "I can use the SRD for free if I'm using it for homebrew games and I'm not monetizing it".

----------


## Envyus

> Damn near impossible to know for sure, but depending on your source, the number of normal tabletop players is anywhere from 9 to 50 million. Even if we use 9 million (which I think is low, but whatever), that's still a large enough percentage of the 13 million DDB accounts to make it worthwhile. And that assumes that NONE of the DDB accounts are duplicates. 
> 
> 
> 
> Also true, though saddening. I think the responses from those people would put all of this One D&D stuff in a _VERY_ different light for WOTC.
> 
> EDIT: here's a video (damn videos) detailing EXACTLY this issue. Even for those of us that don't like videos, it's worth watching (and it's only 6 minutes long).


I hate that guys videos and have never agreed with him.

----------


## Gignere

> So, this is where we're going, huh? Words fail to accurately describe my loathing and contempt.


I dont get this sentiment. Hasbro should make money on D&D what is wrong with it? Go play some free home brew and compare it to D&D and I think youll be happy that they are trying to monetize it. 

If Hasbro isnt making money all they are going to do is fire all their D&D employees. Is that what you want?

If people dont like people making they should take a 100% pay cut themselves first to see how that would feel like.

----------


## Particle_Man

I have long outgrown my desire to "Collect all the things" wrt D&D stuff, but so long as I can play some of the classes and races and still have fun, its all good.  If someone else wants to play the new hotness with the new hotness skin, I am not going to yuck in their yum - more power to them!

----------


## Jervis

> Not sure if you have any knowledge (or if not, if anyone else does), but are they able to de-license sites like Roll20 from hosting 5e D&D games?  If I can still play on Roll20, I don't really have a horse in this race, since I'm not too interested at this point in a full 3d VTT.  I have little to no OGL knowledge beyond "I can use the SRD for free if I'm using it for homebrew games and I'm not monetizing it".


The OGL is something anyone can use and thats all they host freely. Wizards could opt to stop selling their products on the roll 20 marketplace if they wanted too but they cant stop people from playing 5e/done games in the site. At most they could force them to remove dndone from their tags. Anything more would be a legal battle I doubt they want to engage in. Cutting their dmsguild dealings with one bookshelf, either erasing all existing fan content published through dms guild because of the horrible license rules or simply not expanding that licenses to dndone, is more likely but not a certainty. Realistically they would try to incentivize people to publish on dndbeyond by offering easier publishing and taking a smaller cut than one bookshelf (they would take as large or larger of a cut for themselves mind you but removing a third party would let creators keep a little bit more) and allowing people to use shiny new dndone material as a basis without using the OGL, if the OGL does still exist.

----------


## Telesphoros

> Do we know how many downloaded this version vs. the last one? We got a number for the survey respondents, sure, but I'm willing to bet the number of people willing to sit through a lengthy survey are a fraction of the whole who read the materials.


More than 175k playtested 5e combined.After they released the first OneD&D playtest WotC put out this:




> In the first week alone, more of you have playtested One D&D than in the entirety of 5e playtesting! 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has helped shape the future of Dungeons & Dragons!


So bare minimum, it sounds like 200k people downloaded the playtest in the first week. And remember they extended the survey time, so I'd say a significant amount of people downloaded the first playtest material in the following weeks after the first while the survey was still ongoing. Like I said, I just hope they're getting good representation from all aspects of the player base. Obviously the numbers are wonderful compared to 5e's playtest. On the other hand though, there's sooo many more people playing D&D now than after the not so well received 4e and the 5e playtest.

----------


## Brookshw

> If Hasbro isnt making money all they are going to do is fire all their D&D employees. Is that what you want?


Eh, probably sell or license the IP, it has too much recognition to be worthless, just a question of how much in house labor is the ROI worth.

----------


## Psyren

> Damn near impossible to know for sure, but depending on your source, the number of normal tabletop players is anywhere from 9 to 50 million. Even if we use 9 million (which I think is low, but whatever), that's still a large enough percentage of the 13 million DDB accounts to make it worthwhile. And that assumes that NONE of the DDB accounts are duplicates.


Love the not-at-all-subtle implication that DDB accounts and "normal tabletop players" are different populations.




> EDIT: here's a video (damn videos) detailing EXACTLY this issue. Even for those of us that don't like videos, it's worth watching (and it's only 6 minutes long).


Before I even clicked I knew that would be Dungeon Masterpiece  :Small Sigh:

----------


## Jervis

> I dont get this sentiment. Hasbro should make money on D&D what is wrong with it? Go play some free home brew and compare it to D&D and I think youll be happy that they are trying to monetize it. 
> 
> If Hasbro isnt making money all they are going to do is fire all their D&D employees. Is that what you want?
> 
> If people dont like people making they should take a 100% pay cut themselves first to see how that would feel like.


If youve played free RPGs then you know that its often better than what WotC makes. Even fan made free homebrew for dnd is often better than official 5e by a wide margin *Glares antagonistically at the abomination that is 5e spelljammer*. Dnd books (sometimes) have good art and professional editing. The actual rules are often questionable. 

Besides that the issue isnt that theyre making money. 5e is already very expensive by tabletop standards (Gurps being the exception for having approximately all the splats). Beyond that dndbeyond has a very anti consumer business model already and MTG, WotCs other flagship product, is infamous for being anti player and pro speculator to a ridiculous degree. The fact that dnd is wanting to make more money while taking a stance against releasing more content can only realistically mean charging more for less unless they come out with more services to monetize, something I find suspect but if they branch into VTTs with some genuine new ideas then I can see that being a possibility. 

And as others have mentioned in the unlikely event that WotC isnt seeing profits they would just sell the IP, likely to games workshop or something. 

That above breakdown came across as too sensible so Ill just say Wont somebody think of the multibillion dollar corporations and their bottom lines will never get sympathy from me when blatantly anti consumer behavior is involved.

----------


## Sigreid

> Like I said, I just hope they're getting good representation from all aspects of the player base.


They aren't.  A certain section of the player base is more likely to have reviewed the material and just checked out instead of responding than other sections.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> They aren't.  A certain section of the player base is more likely to have reviewed the material and just checked out instead of responding than other sections.


/waves That's me. I read the first one in detail, saw that they were proceeding down a path I didn't like with very fixed intent, and checked out. I'm no casual--I've been running roughly 2 games a week for 8 years now. Currently in 3 groups. And a full high-tier D&D Beyond subscriber for like 4 years now.

----------


## Cheesegear

> They aren't.  A certain section of the player base is more likely to have reviewed the material and just checked out instead of responding than other sections.


Can confirm.

Was very interested in the original material (Races, Backgrounds and Feats), wrote a couple hundred words in the survey...Haven't even looked at anything, since.

The only time I, personally ever use DND Beyond is as a searchable database for Spells.

----------


## Psyren

> They aren't.  A certain section of the player base is more likely to have reviewed the material and just checked out instead of responding than other sections.


Exactly. Not much point in following up, gotta keep the playtest rolling.

----------


## Unoriginal

Corporate suits are always eager to slaughter the Golden Egg Goose.

----------


## Cheesegear

> Corporate suits are always eager to slaughter the Golden Egg Goose.


The problem is that's nearly exactly what was said.

'So...It seems like we've bled _Magic_ dry...So, let's talk D&D...'

----------


## Jervis

> Corporate suits are always eager to slaughter the Golden Egg Goose.





> The problem is that's nearly exactly what was said.
> 
> 'So...It seems like we've bled _Magic_ dry...So, let's talk D&D...'


This basically. Something people forget about publically traded companies is that they care less about long term profitability than short term gain. Stock markets are short sighted and only care that line goes up. IIRC there was a analysis of WotC from one of the big banks recently that pointed out that their handling of MTG products was damaging to the brand long term.

----------


## Gignere

> This basically. Something people forget about publically traded companies is that they care less about long term profitability than short term gain. Stock markets are short sighted and only care that line goes up. IIRC there was a analysis of WotC from one of the big banks recently that pointed out that their handling of MTG products was damaging to the brand long term.


MtG is 30 years old, D&D 5e is 10 years old I think lecturing Hasbro about long and short term profitability is insane. You go and build a multi million dollar product for more than 5 years and see how easy it is. I think some posters comes here and post BS to sound sagacious. There appears to be some socialist or slavery bent to their ideology too, like Hasbro should only work for peanuts and that somehow that would maximize never defined long term profitability.

----------


## Cheesegear

> MtG is 30 years old, D&D 5e is 10 years old I think lecturing Hasbro about long and short term profitability is insane


Wrong. D&D is older than Magic by about 15 years. There are people who have been playing D&D since the 1970s and '80s. There are 60 year-olds, who make up the audience of D&D. Magic, too. But point is there are people who've been around since day dot, who are _still_ around. Considering that in this thread we're also dealing with 1DD, we don't actually care about 5e, specifically. We care about D&D; What it was, is, and can or will be.




> You go and build a multi million dollar product for more than 5 years and see how easy it is.


Wrong. You build a game system in your basement like Gygax did. You then let it mature for *nearly 50 years*, and you consistently reinvent and update (ideally whilst maintaining the audience), and then you see if you're in the same position as D&D is, now.




> Hasbro should only work for peanuts and that somehow that would maximize never defined long term profitability.


Yes. Of course. 'Being a business' means nickel-and-diming people. Like those two should be synonymous?
Business. _Equals_. Gouging people.
Also...In the next 1-2 years...Inflation. N&D'ing people isn't going to be great.

'Give the people what they want, when they want it, in a format they want it _in_, _at a reasonable price_, and they'll more likely pay for it.'
or
You can just gouge whales, and hit everyone else with FOMO - that works too.

----------


## Gignere

> Wrong. D&D is older than Magic by about 15 years. There are people who have been playing D&D since the 1970s and '80s. There are 60 year-olds, who make up the audience of D&D. Magic, too. But point is there are people who've been around since day dot, who are _still_ around. Considering that in this thread we're also dealing with 1DD, we don't actually care about 5e, specifically. We care about D&D; What it was, is, and can or will be.
> 
> 
> 
> Wrong. You build a game system in your basement like Gygax did. You then let it mature for *nearly 50 years*, and you consistently reinvent and update (ideally whilst maintaining the audience), and then you see if you're in the same position as D&D is, now.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. Of course. 'Being a business' means nickel-and-diming people. Like those two should be synonymous.
> ...


Whats a reasonable price? Ive found 5e is very reasonable. I spend at most $100 a year on it, some years way less. Over the 10 years 5e was out Ive spent less than $1000 on it. If Hasbro decides to up it so I spend 1500 on it next 10 years, I would be very happy. 

I think if D&D was more focused on making money it might have become popular earlier. The early D&D was basically unapproachable by casuals. I know because I started at 2e. I loved it but it was for the most part unintelligible for the vast majority of people. 

You guys read one earnings meeting at Hasbro and immediately jump to one D&D is going to become an affordable hobby is crazy, the last 10 years Hasbro has not gouged in my opinion. There is no basis to think they will gouge in the next 10 years.

----------


## Cheesegear

> Over the 10 years 5e was out Ive spent less than $1000 on it. If Hasbro decides to up it so I spend 1500 on it next 10 years, I would be very happy.


So you're in favour of Hasbro raising the prices by *50%*!? Holy ****.  :Small Eek: 

Either no-one DMs anymore, or piracy goes through the roof, and D&D minis effectively die as 3D printing becomes significantly cheaper (Also see; Piracy).

----------


## Gignere

> So you're in favour of Hasbro raising the prices by *50%*!? Holy ****. 
> 
> Either no-one DMs anymore, or piracy goes through the roof, and D&D minis effectively die as 3D printing becomes significantly cheaper (Also see; Piracy).


Yeah I do inflation alone in the last 10 years is probably close to that and what Im paying my employees has jumped at least that much over the last 10 years. In the last 2 its jumped at least 20% my employees compensation.

Im sure Hasbro has to increase the pay of their employees by that much and I want people, their employees to have a living wage. Slavery is great but not my cup of tea.

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> The OGL is something anyone can use and thats all they host freely. Wizards could opt to stop selling their products on the roll 20 marketplace if they wanted too but they cant stop people from playing 5e/done games in the site. At most they could force them to remove dndone from their tags. Anything more would be a legal battle I doubt they want to engage in. Cutting their dmsguild dealings with one bookshelf, either erasing all existing fan content published through dms guild because of the horrible license rules or simply not expanding that licenses to dndone, is more likely but not a certainty. Realistically they would try to incentivize people to publish on dndbeyond by offering easier publishing and taking a smaller cut than one bookshelf (they would take as large or larger of a cut for themselves mind you but removing a third party would let creators keep a little bit more) and allowing people to use shiny new dndone material as a basis without using the OGL, if the OGL does still exist.


Thank you so much for this!  Much appreciated.  If D&DOne doesn't float my boat with its final release, if I can still do 5e "somewhere" that's good.  All depends on what direction my group goes in at this point.

----------


## GentlemanVoodoo

> I dont get this sentiment. Hasbro should make money on D&D what is wrong with it? Go play some free home brew and compare it to D&D and I think youll be happy that they are trying to monetize it. 
> 
> If Hasbro isnt making money all they are going to do is fire all their D&D employees. Is that what you want?
> 
> If people dont like people making they should take a 100% pay cut themselves first to see how that would feel like.


Not really. While it is true that home brew items may sometimes be lacking in quality the same is also said for a multi-billion dollar company. I am more incline to trust home brew creations because even if bad, there is still a purer passion for the love of the hobby as compared to a corporation.

You are correct that Hasbro has to make money. That is the point of a business. But there is a stark difference between making money to keep it going (still maintaining a genuine passion of the product) as opposed to cranking out products which are there just for cash grab.

In general what I have heard of this, I understand from the business stand point in terms of trying to make more and grow a product. However, *AS A CONSUMER OF SAID PRODUCT*, I am not hearing good things that will make me want to invest in it. If Hasbro could find a way to balance growth without simply just doing what every other company in various mediums are doing now (quick cash grab gimmicks...like loot boxes or crap MTG has been doing) that would be one thing. However, after listing to this "chat" I do not see that happening and makes me have less faith in the company or its products, *AS A CONSUMER*.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Indeed. There's a position that can be had here that isn't "WotC can do no wrong and I'm sure their implementation of this will be 100% amazing and on the ball!" and "WotC are criminal scum and they should churn these products out for free because we're entitled to their services".

----------


## Gignere

> Indeed. There's a position that can be had here that isn't "WotC can do no wrong and I'm sure their implementation of this will be 100% amazing and on the ball!" and "WotC are criminal scum and they should churn these products out for free because we're entitled to their services".


On balance given the last 10 years I felt Hasbro has managed the brand pretty well. Thats why Im willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the next 10 years. Monetization is very normal talk especially when they are giving a talk at an investment bank. What I find positive is that they are willing to invest in the brand, buying DandD Beyond to learn more about their customers.

Do you know what would be a red flag that they plan to kill the golden goose? 

If they talk about cost cutting and stopping investments and maximizing returns on their current IP.

----------


## Brookshw

> However, *AS A CONSUMER OF SAID PRODUCT*, I am not hearing good things that will make me want to invest in it. If Hasbro could find a way to balance growth without simply just doing what every other company in various mediums are doing now (quick cash grab gimmicks...like loot boxes or crap MTG has been doing) that would be one thing.


Unless I'm missing something, I don't see traditional printed books going away, so it doesn't seem that anyone needs to change their consumption practices to remain with D&D. If they want to offer more online content via paid ,microtransactions dlcs, then power to them, I won't be buying them, but it's no skin off my nose for them to be available to those who want to purchase them.

----------


## Cheesegear

> On balance given the last 10 years I felt Hasbro has managed the brand pretty well. Thats why Im willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the next 10 years.


Hasbro stock went down 30% in the last six months, and currently sits lower than it was pre-COVID. Quite arguably because of their horrific mismanagement of _MtG_. However, according to the call, this is fine. This is the problem. This posts several red flags all over the place with klaxxons blaring.




> Monetization is very normal talk especially when they are giving a talk at an investment bank.


The problem is the conversation _almost_ feels like;

So, it appears that you've run Magic into the ground and stock prices are down 30% from Q2, and down 50% from 2020 What are you gonna do?
Do the same thing to D&D, what we did to Magic.

As an investor, that sounds like a great two years coming up.
As a consumer...What happens after two years? Is D&D gonna be in the same situation as Magic? ...That sounds bad.




> What I find positive is that they are willing to invest in the brand, buying DandD Beyond to learn more about their customers.


Do you know what WotC knows about _Magic_ players? ...That's right. Basically everything.




> If they talk about cost cutting and stopping investments and maximizing returns on their current IP.


That's the complete opposite of what they did to _Magic_.

People aren't really looking at D&D.
They're looking at WotC, and Hasbro, and Magic...And using that call, equating it to the meme of the dog sitting in the fire...And then hearing that same dog, say 'And now we're going to monetise D&D even harder.'
...Y- ...You mean like you did to _Magic_...Oh God no... :Small Eek:

----------


## Psyren

> Not really. While it is true that home brew items may sometimes be lacking in quality the same is also said for a multi-billion dollar company. I am more incline to trust home brew creations because even if bad, there is still a purer passion for the love of the hobby as compared to a corporation.
> 
> You are correct that Hasbro has to make money. That is the point of a business. But there is a stark difference between making money to keep it going (still maintaining a genuine passion of the product) as opposed to cranking out products which are there just for cash grab.


Oftentimes I find the term "cash grab" is defined as "they want to sell a product I'm personally not interested in."




> In general what I have heard of this, I understand from the business stand point in terms of trying to make more and grow a product. However, *AS A CONSUMER OF SAID PRODUCT*, I am not hearing good things that will make me want to invest in it. If Hasbro could find a way to balance growth without simply just doing what every other company in various mediums are doing now (quick cash grab gimmicks...like loot boxes or crap MTG has been doing) that would be one thing. However, after listing to this "chat" I do not see that happening and makes me have less faith in the company or its products, *AS A CONSUMER*.


The word lootbox did not come up once in the entire call, and they spent the D&D segment discussing how fundamentally different the brand is from MTG. Yes, there is potential for post-sale or recurrent spending to become predatory, and I'll be in the trenches with the rest of you if I see things going in that direction, but "we're interested in finding more revenue streams beyond the books themselves" is, on its face, not that.

----------


## Cheesegear

> but "we're interested in finding more revenue streams beyond the books themselves" is, on its face, not that.


A big part of me thinks that probably (hopefully) means IP licensing. But like, even more than they already are (D&D Cookbooks, anyone?).
Like if D&D Movie is successful, we get a cut of that from licensing, and that's a revenue stream.

Another part of me says 'Maybe ban DM's Guild, and then set up something exactly the same on DNDB, and get people to pay _us_ for homebrew? We don't want to ban homebrew - that's insane. We do, however, want to ban us-not-getting-a-cut.'
Another part of me says 'Disable content sharing on DNDB, that'll work. Let's charge people to share content - like Netflix is doing soon!'

----------


## Gignere

> Hasbro stock went down 30% in the last six months, and currently sits lower than it was pre-COVID. Quite arguably because of their horrific mismanagement of _MtG_. However, according to the call, this is fine. This is the problem. This posts several red flags all over the place with klaxxons blaring.
> 
> 
> 
> The problem is the conversation _almost_ feels like;
> 
> So, it appears that you've run Magic into the ground and stock prices are down 30% from Q2, and down 50% from 2020 What are you gonna do?
> Do the same thing to D&D, what we did to Magic.
> 
> ...


Magic the Gathering is just about the only positive for Hasbro at least through 3rd quarter of 2022. It is the exact opposite what you are claiming with just a quick google search. 

Their stock dropping is due to inflation eating into their earnings. 

Just because you dont like where MtG is going, doesnt mean it isnt doing good.

Edit: the fact that inflation is eating into their earnings means the exact opposite of price gouging it means Hasbro has been willing to make less money instead of passing on higher costs to their consumers.

----------


## Cheesegear

> Their stock dropping is due to inflation eating into their earnings.


Google Bank of America and Hasbro.
That's about as much as I can say whilst sticking to forum rules.

----------


## Psyren

I don't really care about MTG (or any TCG really) myself, so I have nothing to say about that.




> A big part of me thinks that probably (hopefully) means IP licensing. But like, even more than they already are (D&D Cookbooks, anyone?).
> Like if D&D Movie is successful, we get a cut of that from licensing, and that's a revenue stream.


Media licensing was indeed mentioned. Not just the movie, but video games like Baldurs Gate 3 were mentioned more than once.




> Another part of me says 'Maybe ban DM's Guild, and then set up something exactly the same on DNDB, and get people to pay _us_ for homebrew? We don't want to ban homebrew - that's insane. We do, however, want to ban us-not-getting-a-cut.'
> Another part of me says 'Disable content sharing on DNDB, that'll work. Let's charge people to share content - like Netflix is doing soon!'


None of this was mentioned.

----------


## Cheesegear

> None of this was mentioned.


Do you mean:
'It wasn't mentioned so I wont doom-and-gloom about unless or until it does happen.' or
'It wasn't mentioned so therefore they wont do it because they didn't say they would.'
?

----------


## Psyren

> Do you mean:
> 'It wasn't mentioned so I wont doom-and-gloom about unless or until it does happen.' or
> 'It wasn't mentioned so therefore they wont do it because they didn't say they would.'
> ?


Given that I'm incapable of predicting the future, I meant the former.

----------


## Brookshw

> A big part of me thinks that probably (hopefully) means IP licensing. But like, even more than they already are (D&D Cookbooks, anyone?).
> Like if D&D Movie is successful, we get a cut of that from licensing, and that's a revenue stream.


 There's already a D&D cookbook, and a D&D ABCs, and D&D 123's, plushies, and on, and on. I'm sure they'll continue to push licensing.




> Another part of me says 'Maybe ban DM's Guild, and then set up something exactly the same on DNDB, and get people to pay _us_ for homebrew? We don't want to ban homebrew - that's insane. We do, however, want to ban us-not-getting-a-cut.'
> Another part of me says 'Disable content sharing on DNDB, that'll work. Let's charge people to share content - like Netflix is doing soon!'


I'd say that's extremely unlikely. DM's Guild is an offshoot (and a revenue driving one) of the OGL; the OGL is specifically implemented to create an "all roads lead to D&D" ecosystem to steer anyone in the hobby towards WoTC, and to avoid the entry of new competition into the market by saturating it (and to avoid the constant C&D streams required to protect their IP). If they walked away from either they'd be abandoning a strategy they implemented with 3e, one which has paid off very well. It is the licensing you just said you wanted.

----------


## Psyren

> I'd say that's extremely unlikely. DM's Guild is an offshoot (and a revenue driving one) of the OGL; the OGL is specifically implemented to create an "all roads lead to D&D" ecosystem to steer anyone in the hobby towards WoTC, and to avoid the entry of new competition into the market by saturating it (and to avoid the constant C&D streams required to protect their IP). If they walked away from either they'd be abandoning a strategy they implemented with 3e, one which has paid off very well. It is the licensing you just said you wanted.


Not to mention they tried once already (4e and the GSL) and it backfired so strongly it spawned their greatest competitor.

----------


## Unoriginal

> Not to mention they tried once already (4e and the GSL) and it backfired so strongly it spawned their greatest competitor.


Tbf they've been using/announcing they're going to use strategies WotC had discarded years ago as counter-productive.

----------


## Jervis

> MtG is 30 years old, D&D 5e is 10 years old I think lecturing Hasbro about long and short term profitability is insane. You go and build a multi million dollar product for more than 5 years and see how easy it is. I think some posters comes here and post BS to sound sagacious. There appears to be some socialist or slavery bent to their ideology too, like Hasbro should only work for peanuts and that somehow that would maximize never defined long term profitability.


WotC acquired dnd from the people who made it in a business deal and have ruined it at least once, up too three times if you ask some people. The success of dnd and MtG are less because of actual quality and more because of marketing. Put enough marketing money behind something and it will sell up to the point where the market does well and truly get fed up with it. Dnd is middle of the road in terms of quality, good for war gaming and dungeon crawling but ironically bad for what a lot of people use it for. MtG is solid as a card game but a lot of other games have improved on the formula since its release. 

Besides that this isnt exactly some baseless opinion. Back in November a Bank of America analyst slashed his price target in half precisely because of how WotC was treating MtG as a IP, he felt they were killing it for short term profits. And speaking solely from personal experience when shelves were empty during the shutdown and every other card game was sold out MtG was fully in stock everywhere and people still werent buying in my area. 

Besides that, you arent really grasping the difference between being a company being profitable and a company engaging in anti consumer behavior. You can make money by making a valuable product and selling it and no one will fault you for it. Criticizing business practices doesnt mean you want a company to not make money. Thats just silly. 




> Thank you so much for this!  Much appreciated.  If D&DOne doesn't float my boat with its final release, if I can still do 5e "somewhere" that's good.  All depends on what direction my group goes in at this point.


Happy to help. I feel like dndone has a decent probability of spawning a pathfinder if people dont like the changes they make. Homebrew 5e is in a good place so I wouldnt blame people for not adopting dndone when it releases. Im mostly happy with their current design direction even if more dndbeyond integration has me less than excited. If they do start nickel and dimming people to an excessive degree I wouldnt be happy supporting it.

----------


## Gignere

> WotC acquired dnd from the people who made it in a business deal and have ruined it at least once, up too three times if you ask some people. The success of dnd and MtG are less because of actual quality and more because of marketing. Put enough marketing money behind something and it will sell up to the point where the market does well and truly get fed up with it. Dnd is middle of the road in terms of quality, good for war gaming and dungeon crawling but ironically bad for what a lot of people use it for. MtG is solid as a card game but a lot of other games have improved on the formula since its release. 
> 
> Besides that this isnt exactly some baseless opinion. Back in November a Bank of America analyst slashed his price target in half precisely because of how WotC was treating MtG as a IP, he felt they were killing it for short term profits. And speaking solely from personal experience when shelves were empty during the shutdown and every other card game was sold out MtG was fully in stock everywhere and people still werent buying in my area. 
> 
> Besides that, you arent really grasping the difference between being a company being profitable and a company engaging in anti consumer behavior. You can make money by making a valuable product and selling it and no one will fault you for it. Criticizing business practices doesnt mean you want a company to not make money. Thats just silly. 
> 
> 
> 
> Happy to help. I feel like dndone has a decent probability of spawning a pathfinder if people dont like the changes they make. Homebrew 5e is in a good place so I wouldnt blame people for not adopting dndone when it releases. Im mostly happy with their current design direction even if more dndbeyond integration has me less than excited. If they do start nickel and dimming people to an excessive degree I wouldnt be happy supporting it.


If bank analysts were actually any good at making recommendations on stock investments or running companies they wouldnt be stock analysts.

Also MtG just grew to be 1B revenue product line for Hasbro, which indicates theyve grown. Anyway I dont know why people are using MtG as an analogy, its Hasbros one bright spot in a challenging year. 

They also said D&D is different than MtG and their approach towards D&D would be very different. Its more like people are grasping at straws to attack a company that is trying to make any profits. Look at the posts complaining about monetization which is just very normal corporate speak. There is nothing alarming about it at all. Fact is Hasbro hasnt or unable to past inflation costs to their customers, causing their earnings to drop, which is the exact opposite of gouging which other posters has alleged them of doing or planning to do.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> On balance given the last 10 years I felt Hasbro has managed the brand pretty well. Thats why Im willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the next 10 years.


Which I find as unreasonable as you seem to find the concern in this thread. Benefit of the doubt for the next ten years? Why?

I'm hoping they implement whatever they have in mind well. But you speak as if there doesn't exist the potential for it to be done poorly, and/or as if WotC/Hasbro has never made bad decisions before or bungled their plans.

I know people think that it's something that WotC did that has made D&D massively popular in current times but it isn't. It's a happy accident. This popularity is not guaranteed to remain in "the next 10 years".



> Monetization is very normal talk especially when they are giving a talk at an investment bank.


Push your chair away from the keyboard and take a look at your screen. We're not at an investment bank. We're on a forum. We are the people that they will be extracting the money from. The people here that are divided on any number of things about the game, and discuss/argue about it at length all the time.

It is very normal for consumers to be wondering what decisions they will make to extract more profits out of us and if and how things will be locked behind a paywall.

Like... this is super duper normal. If you can understand the monetization thing, surely you can understand the other side of it too?



> What I find positive is that they are willing to invest in the brand, buying DandD Beyond to learn more about their customers.


1. Learn about their customers... to make them buy more things.

2. DND Beyond is how they're going to get that money from everyone.

You can't, on the one hand, lecture us about the realities of a business, and then on the other hand act like investing in DND Beyond to "learn about" us is a gesture of trying to get to know us better as friends and colleagues.



> Do you know what would be a red flag that they plan to kill the golden goose?


We're not there yet. They're talking about how to turn DND _into_ a golden goose.

----------


## Jervis

> If bank analysts were actually any good at making recommendations on stock investments or running companies they wouldnt be stock analysts.
> 
> Also MtG just grew to be 1B revenue product line for Hasbro, which indicates theyve grown. Anyway I dont know why people are using MtG as an analogy, its Hasbros one bright spot in a challenging year. 
> 
> They also said D&D is different than MtG and their approach towards D&D would be very different. Its more like people are grasping at straws to attack a company that is trying to make any profits. Look at the posts complaining about monetization which is just very normal corporate speak. There is nothing alarming about it at all. Fact is Hasbro hasnt or unable to past inflation costs to their customers, causing their earnings to drop, which is the exact opposite of gouging which other posters has alleged them of doing or planning to do.


That growth in revenue is part of why people are worried. Theyre making too much product and saturating their own market. Thats the entire issue people are talking about when they say theyre killing the brand for a profit boost in the short term. Even just looking at expansion sets they went from 3 a year to 4-5 a year, and thats ignoring other products. That might not seem like a big deal until you realize that MtG has set rotation and even without that the newest cards will always be the most impactful. Saying but its a billion dollar product doesnt change that issue, especially when the way theyre increasing profits is the problem. People are still buying for now but yeah I can only keep it up for so long. Ironically this same thing happened to dnd once upon a time in 3.5. What happened there? Decreased interest in the game because people were being overwhelmed by the repeated releases. Thats something they said they wanted to avoid with 5e and ironically stumbled into with MtG. Again working for now but a simple google search shows post after post and article after article of people being worried or fed up with it. That sort of thing only works until the sentiment spreads from a few people dropping out of the game to a lot of people. 

As for inflation costs and the like, its not some noble reason. Price increases are never something a company wants because it causes backlash from everyone. The typical approach is to cut costs or find other methods of monetization. Seeing as 5e has taken a approach to avoiding over saturation for reasons already discussed Im not optimistic.

----------


## Psyren

> That growth in revenue is part of why people are worried. Theyre making too much product and saturating their own market. Thats the entire issue people are talking about when they say theyre killing the brand for a profit boost in the short term. Even just looking at expansion sets they went from 3 a year to 4-5 a year, and thats ignoring other products. That might not seem like a big deal until you realize that MtG has set rotation and even without that the newest cards will always be the most impactful. Saying but its a billion dollar product doesnt change that issue, especially when the way theyre increasing profits is the problem. People are still buying for now but yeah I can only keep it up for so long. Ironically this same thing happened to dnd once upon a time in 3.5. What happened there? Decreased interest in the game because people were being overwhelmed by the repeated releases. Thats something they said they wanted to avoid with 5e and ironically stumbled into with MtG. Again working for now but a simple google search shows post after post and article after article of people being worried or fed up with it. That sort of thing only works until the sentiment spreads from a few people dropping out of the game to a lot of people.


IIRC the saturation of MTG was a supply chain issue (printing and distribution forced them to release two sets simultaneously) - but the important thing is that none of this has anything to do with D&D; D&D is far from saturated, if anything people are clamoring for more content.

OneD&D increasing focus on digital might even be prescient - it means that should the physical hobby world go through upheaval again, e.g. another pandemic or the like, they won't be wholly dependent on shuttered FLGS and cancelled conventions to drive sales of new releases.




> As for inflation costs and the like, its not some noble reason. Price increases are never something a company wants because it causes backlash from everyone. The typical approach is to cut costs or find other methods of monetization. Seeing as 5e has taken a approach to avoiding over saturation for reasons already discussed Im not optimistic.


I'm not sure they could do anything that would increase the optimism you speak of. Saturation is bad because MTG, avoiding saturation is also bad, it seems like they can't win.

----------


## Unoriginal

> I'm not sure they could do anything that would increase the optimism you speak of. Saturation is bad because MTG, avoiding saturation is also bad, it seems like they can't win.


Avoiding saturation is never bad, by definition. 

Saturation is bad, releasing too little is bad. Winning is finding the happy medium between "we have the time to work quality content" and "our customers don't have to wait too long for the new stuff".

----------


## Telesphoros

> Unless I'm missing something, I don't see traditional printed books going away, so it doesn't seem that anyone needs to change their consumption practices to remain with D&D. If they want to offer more online content via paid ,microtransactions dlcs, then power to them, I won't be buying them, but it's no skin off my nose for them to be available to those who want to purchase them.


I suspect the core rulebooks and some supplemental type rulebooks will be fine for physical copies. And I bet there are going to be more alternate covers and Collector's versions ala Beadle and Grimm and slipcase sets. 

There is, however, plenty of official D&D 5e stuff that doesn't come in printed form at the moment. I also expect this to continue to a greater degree, especially with Adventures, Extra Life style pdfs, maybe extra Species, Monsters and whatnot too. I can also see Adventurer's League type stuff being integrated into DnDBeyond and the VTT for pickup games and such for those without a regular gaming group or those that have extra time and want to play more. 






> IIRC the saturation of MTG was a supply chain issue (printing and distribution forced them to release two sets simultaneously) - but the important thing is that none of this has anything to do with D&D; D&D is far from saturated, if anything people are clamoring for more content.


I think supply chain issues were what they blamed the Q3 lost revenue on since some sets got pushed to Q4. The over saturation of product was already there to the tune of 25 Magic sets and 48 Secret Lairs this year alone. Even without supply chain issues, that's a set about every 2 weeks.

Yeah, D&D is far from saturated at this point, but it sounds like that could change here soon. And not necessarily with more content, but with the same content packaged in very different ways with maybe a few slight alterations here and there. And definitely more digital content. You don't hire 350 people for your Digital platform, pay 4 billion dollars for Entertainment One, and buy up game studios without producing a lot more content.

----------


## Psyren

> Avoiding saturation is never bad, by definition.


My point exactly, but it's being brought up as a criticism of D&D somehow.




> I think supply chain issues were what they blamed the Q3 lost revenue on since some sets got pushed to Q4. The over saturation of product was already there to the tune of 25 Magic sets and 48 Secret Lairs this year alone. Even without supply chain issues, that's a set about every 2 weeks.


Sure, I guess? As I said, I couldn't care less about what MTG is doing, especially not commercially. I haven't bought a pack since the original Ravnica.




> Yeah, D&D is far from saturated at this point, but it sounds like that could change here soon.


It really doesn't.

(Hell, we already have the entire 2023 release schedule.)

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

What do I expect from monetization:

*Things that make total sense and I'd be mostly ok with (pending details)*:
* Charging _someone_ for the VTT, possibly with a very limited (both materials and upload space) free tier.
* VTT microtransactions for things like maps, tokens, music, assets, and even a la carte access to character building assets.
* (unlikely) paid integrations between D&D Beyond and other VTTs. So you can add a WotC-supported "api bridge" to your Roll20 game, log in with your D&D Beyond credentials, and import supported, "blessed", legal versions of the content you own. This is possible now, but it's super shady and involves deeply 3rd-party integrations that are not well supported at all. And likely on the wrong side of legality.
* More licensing of IP for toys, swag, movies, other media, etc. And more strict enforcement of copyright/trademark on some of those things.

*Things that are likely IMO and kinda bad*
* Restricting content sharing on D&D Beyond, including possibly tying it in to paid subscriber status for both parties (ie you can only share it with other subscribers)
* Restricting use of homebrew materials on D&D Beyond, whether requiring payment, restricting amount, or otherwise.
* Publishing more, "lighter" books. At the same price. Basically shrinkflation--you're still paying $49.99 for a book, but now instead of 250 content-ful pages, you get 200 and more of those are artwork and bigger fonts. Or just generally lower levels of content quality. This is the old White Wolf and TSR model--churn out buckets of material that's mostly crap.

*Things that are possible and bad*
* Restricting the OneD&D SRD even further. So basically if the SRD were just the Basic Rules.
* Lumping more material into the proprietary bin. Like WH did when they changed all the lore around the space elves to make them fully protectible by IP laws.
* Much more aggressive legal action against homebrewers who don't use "blessed" (and monetizable) channels such as DM's Guild.
* Not extending current licensing for competing VTTs to OneD&D (currently they partner with a couple, including Fantasy Grounds IIRC, to make content more available there).

*Things I don't expect*
* Outright digital[1] lootboxes. Too many legal issues and potential for backlash.
* Stopping using the OGL entirely. 
* Outright trying to shut down other VTTs. Too many legal issues.

[1] there are already physical ones for minis.

----------


## Telesphoros

> Sure, I guess? As I said, I couldn't care less about what MTG is doing, especially not commercially. I haven't bought a pack since the original Ravnica.
> 
> 
> 
> It really doesn't.
> 
> (Hell, we already have the entire 2023 release schedule.)




I could care less about Magic myself, except how it was tied to D&D during the fireside chat and the cues they're taking from it to monetize D&D. 


Those are the major books that are going to be released next year, yes. Entire product release schedule? Um, nope, don't think so.

----------


## Psyren

> I could care less about Magic myself, except how it was tied to D&D during the fireside chat and the cues they're taking from it to monetize D&D.


They talked about the cues they're _not_ taking from it too.




> Those are the major books that are going to be released next year, yes. Entire product release schedule? Um, nope, don't think so.


Any other releases will be too minor to constitute saturation.

----------


## Jervis

> IIRC the saturation of MTG was a supply chain issue (printing and distribution forced them to release two sets simultaneously) - but the important thing is that none of this has anything to do with D&D; D&D is far from saturated, if anything people are clamoring for more content.
> 
> OneD&D increasing focus on digital might even be prescient - it means that should the physical hobby world go through upheaval again, e.g. another pandemic or the like, they won't be wholly dependent on shuttered FLGS and cancelled conventions to drive sales of new releases.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure they could do anything that would increase the optimism you speak of. Saturation is bad because MTG, avoiding saturation is also bad, it seems like they can't win.


It would be better to rephrase things. Their low amount of releases was a attempt to avoid saturation, I personally think they overcorrected somewhat but thats besides the point. Point is they have stated that they dont want to have too many releases. If they want to increase monetization without increasing output, something they previously said they were against, then their options are to piecemeal up content that previously would have been in a single book, charge more for less, start nickel and dimming with subscription services (likely ones that target GMs specifically since they buy most of everything), or some other form of real innovation thats worth what theyre charging. Seeing WotC has a very long history of anti consumer behavior im doubtful that well see any innovation from them and just more of the same. An increasing move towards digital is exactly what im afraid of since dndbeyond has such a anti consumer business model 

As for MtG I understand the supply chain issues in that instance but the game has still seen a uptick in product thats over saturating the market beyond that example. Even the original creator isnt a fan of what theyre doing.

----------


## Brookshw

> Any other releases will be too minor to constitute saturation.


Now to hope they don't mess up Placescape....

----------


## OldTrees1

> It would be better to rephrase things. Their low amount of releases was a attempt to avoid saturation, I personally think they overcorrected somewhat but thatÂs besides the point. Point is they have stated that they donÂt want to have too many releases. If they want to increase monetization without increasing output, something they previously said they were against, then their options are -snip list- 
> 
> As for MtG I understand the supply chain issues in that instance but the game has still seen a uptick in product thatÂs over saturating the market beyond that example. Even the original creator isnÂt a fan of what theyÂre doing.


Agreed. Assuming they stick to their design philosophy (generally a good bet) then they have limited options and I dislike most of those options.

I already found my demand for 5E books has greater diminishing returns as a result of some of 5E's structural design. So even if they alter their design philosophy and increase the amount of 5E books, it might have diminishing returns. Thus another reason for your list of their other options.

Relevant graph of the uptick in product.







> Now to hope they don't mess up Placescape....


In my opinion, the Spelljammer books were not worth it for me. I wish you luck, but set your expectations low enough that you will be pleasantly surprised.

----------


## Psyren

> It would be better to rephrase things. Their low amount of releases was a attempt to avoid saturation, I personally think they overcorrected somewhat but thats besides the point. Point is they have stated that they dont want to have too many releases. If they want to increase monetization without increasing output, something they previously said they were against, then their options are to piecemeal up content that previously would have been in a single book, charge more for less, start nickel and dimming with subscription services (likely ones that target GMs specifically since they buy most of everything), or some other form of real innovation thats worth what theyre charging. Seeing WotC has a very long history of anti consumer behavior im doubtful that well see any innovation from them and just more of the same. An increasing move towards digital is exactly what im afraid of since dndbeyond has such a anti consumer business model 
> 
> As for MtG I understand the supply chain issues in that instance but the game has still seen a uptick in product thats over saturating the market beyond that example. Even the original creator isnt a fan of what theyre doing.


Looking at the release schedule I'm not seeing anything that would/should have been in one book getting piecemealed out for nickels. We've got the heist adventure first which is almost certainly meant to line up with the DnD heist movie, the giant splat, the phandelver adventure to expand on their most popular starter set, what looks to be a magic item compendium, and then the planescape setting. And all of that will be running alongside multiple rounds of the 1DnD playtest. None of that looks like it should be bundled together and I really don't see the design team having the bandwidth to do a lot of other stuff besides this, so this belief has no basis as far as I can see.

----------


## Brookshw

> In my opinion, the Spelljammer books were not worth it for me. I wish you luck, but set your expectations low enough that you will be pleasantly surprised.


I've been playing since the 80s, and SJ 5e was the first time I returned a product. I'm planning on being VERY cautious about PS, and other products, going forward.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> I've been playing since the 80s, and SJ 5e was the first time I returned a product. I'm planning on being VERY cautious about PS, and other products, going forward.


Right.

If "we need to make more money" means "we'll have robust setting books and splatbooks", I'm the first on the bandwagon. Spelljammer, Ships of Wildspace and Ship Combat, Aliens of the Stars, etc etc etc I'm all down for it.

If it's "we're going to half-ass a spelljammer book and then try to get you to buy little bits and doodads that say SPELLJAMMER on them to use with our VTT" then thanks but no thanks. Stripping lore and putting out lackluster setting books, and then musing on how to make more money seems like not going in the right direction.

But hey, who am I to not have unwavering loyalty to WotC, amirite?!?!

----------


## Psyren

> I've been playing since the 80s, and SJ 5e was the first time I returned a product. I'm planning on being VERY cautious about PS, and other products, going forward.


This reminds me of another good business practice they're doing, piecemeal sales. Say you find Spellljammer to not be worthwhile but you still want to use the six races in it on DDB, you can buy them separately at $2 each, or a bundle of all six for $9 total. Similarly, if you don't care about  Dragonlance but want the Lunar Sorcerer for a different campaign, you can buy that by itself too for $2. And having access to those components via DDB still counts as official for the purposes of things like AL legality at conventions and FLGS.

Essentially, if you don't find a given book worthwhile, you don't have to buy the whole thing anymore if you don't want to, which is AFAICT a first for any edition of D&D.

----------


## Brookshw

> This reminds me of another good business practice they're doing, piecemeal sales. Say you find Spellljammer to not be worthwhile but you still want to use the six races in it on DDB, you can buy them separately at $2 each, or a bundle of all six for $9 total. Similarly, if you don't care about  Dragonlance but want the Lunar Sorcerer for a different campaign, you can buy that by itself too for $2. And having access to those components via DDB still counts as official for the purposes of things like AL legality at conventions and FLGS.
> 
> Essentially, if you don't find a given book worthwhile, you don't have to buy the whole thing anymore if you don't want to, which is AFAICT a first for any edition of D&D.


Very true, sell it piecemeal, and eventually do some compendiums to sell em a third time.

----------


## Cheesegear

> Any other releases will be too minor to constitute saturation.


Depends how many there are.
Depends how good/powerful they are.
_See; Magic the Gathering_.

If WotC embraces digital, like, properly...You can release an infinite amount of three-page .pdfs, indefinitely, at say, $4 a pop.
Let's say that you release one every two weeks.
At the end of 2024 (?), you could have roughly 20-25 releases.
How many did you get?
How many are good?
How many are so good that you'd be stupid not to get it?
How many are so good that if you don't have a D&DB account you are dumb?
Something, something, does piracy go way up?

I'm not talking about UA.
I'm talking about splitting all of the _Tasha's_ subclasses into their own microtransaction. But _Tasha's_ in a compiled book form, doesn't exist for 1-3 more years after the final subclass is published.

----------


## Brookshw

> How many did you get?


Zero, because it's an annoying sales model and there are other games that are available in manners compatible with my preferred consumer practices.

Also we're now risking bloat nonsense, and you're relying on DMs allowing all that stuff.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

If they do split things up into these little transactions, isn't that more incentive to make them "must-haves"?

I'm not crazy about it even before then; make a book that I want to buy, not a book I don't want to buy but has a thing in it I'll purchase for a few bucks...

----------


## Brookshw

> If they do split things up into these little transactions, isn't that more incentive to make them "must-haves"?


Power creep  :Small Sigh:

----------


## Cheesegear

> Also we're now risking bloat nonsense, and you're relying on DMs allowing all that stuff.


I'm actually envisioning a future where if it's "official", the DM doesn't actually _get_ to disallow it.

I'm actually envisioning a future where the DM's job is to simply tell a story and moderate DCs, and the players are actually the ones in control...Because, y'know...The direction of the game.

I already have to go through the ringer when I have to justify banning a Race or Subclass. 'If it wasn't supposed to be used, why did they print it?'

I don't like that you have a resource-less Fly speed, starting from Level 1, with a caveat that doesn't even matter to a lot of really good classes. No Aaracokra.
What? You think you're better than WotC?
Oh FFS.

----------


## Sigreid

> I'm actually envisioning a future where if it's "official", the DM doesn't actually _get_ to disallow it.
> 
> I'm actually envisioning a future where the DM's job is to simply tell a story and moderate DCs, and the players are actually the ones in control...Because, y'know...The direction of the game.
> 
> I already have to go through the ringer when I have to justify banning a Race or Subclass. 'If it wasn't supposed to be used, why did they print it?'
> 
> I don't like that you have a resource-less Fly speed, starting from Level 1, with a caveat that doesn't even matter to a lot of really good classes. No Aaracokra.
> What? You think you're better than WotC?
> Oh FFS.


Outside of organized play a DM can always limit or change anything he wants simply because you can't force someone to DM.

----------


## Particle_Man

> People are still buying for now but yeah I can only keep it up for so long. Ironically this same thing happened to dnd once upon a time in 3.5. What happened there? Decreased interest in the game because people were being overwhelmed by the repeated releases.


This seems odd to me because Pathfinder 1e did so well immediately upon taking over the 3.5 crown after Wotc stopped producing 3.5.

I mean, I could see an argument that 2nd edition AD&D was oversaturating the market with settings, but I don't see how 3.5 was oversaturated that is congruent with Pathfinder 1e doing so well immediately after 3.5 ended.

----------


## Psyren

> If they do split things up into these little transactions, isn't that more incentive to make them "must-haves"?
> 
> I'm not crazy about it even before then; make a book that I want to buy, not a book I don't want to buy but has a thing in it I'll purchase for a few bucks...





> Power creep


There's a concrete benefit to this split, it lets people vote with their wallet and still get the content they want. Imagine if people could buy the Binder without the rest of Tome of Magic, it would send a clear signal to WotC that the Truenamer and the Shadowcaster needed work. The same is true of Spelljammer, people who find the rules and adventure lacking can just buy the races. 




> _See; Magic the Gathering_.


Why? D&D isn't a TCG.




> Let's say that you release one every two weeks.


Not even 3.5's torrent got anywhere near this kind of release schedule.




> I'm actually envisioning a future where if it's "official", the DM doesn't actually _get_ to disallow it.


How would you envision this future working? The WotC police storming your living room the moment you ban Lunar Sorcerer?  :Small Tongue:

----------


## Cheesegear

> Outside of organized play a DM can always limit or change anything he wants simply because you can't force someone to DM.


I've said it multiple times; If your pool of players is limited, you can't really afford for some players to walk away from the table.

Let's say that D&DB sells a Subclass for $5.
The player shows up to the session, with that Subclass, that they _paid for_.
The DM says no.

Either:
a) The sale never should've been made in the first place.
b) The player refunds the sale, nullifying the sale.
c) The DM owes that player $5?

...The best solution would be to remove the DM's say.




> How would you envision this future working? The WotC police storming your living room the moment you ban Lunar Sorcerer?


For older, established, stable tables? It wouldn't. Rule 0 is the DM can do whatever they want.

For new tables and new players, they would buy into the game without a pre-conceived notion that the 'DM is always right.' That notion has slowly been eroded in the last five years anyway:

Rule 0 is the DM's job is to make sure the players have fun.
If the players aren't having fun, it's the DM's fault. #BadDM

----------


## Psyren

> For older, established, stable tables? It wouldn't. Rule 0 is the DM can do whatever they want.
> 
> For new tables and new players, they would buy into the game without a pre-conceived notion that the 'DM is always right.' That notion has slowly been eroded in the last five years anyway:


The DM _isn't_ always right. Pick any 10 threads asking for playgroup advice around here and you'll see that plain as day.




> Rule 0 is the DM's job is to make sure the players have fun.
> If the players aren't having fun, it's the DM's fault. #BadDM


The players not having fun might not be _solely_ the DM's fault, but the DM should be involved in solving it, no?

----------


## Cheesegear

> The players not having fun might not be _solely_ the DM's fault, but the DM should be involved in solving it, no?


My..._Fun_...Involves playing a specific Race and/or Subclass (or both)*, that the DM has said I can't use.

Am I having fun wrong? Is the DM a big poopy-head for no reason?

Well:
Can the DM do whatever they want, or
Is it the DM's responsibility to make sure I have fun?**

*I also conceptualise a scenario in which the player has potentially paid to use this Race and/or Subclass.
**This is probably philosophical, and relies heavily on your perception of the game, and the direction it's heading, and may even require a new thread.

----------


## JNAProductions

Everyone should make sure that the entire table is having fun.
This will almost always involve some measure of compromise. From people playing the PCs and the DM.

----------


## Psyren

> My..._Fun_...Involves playing a specific Race and/or Subclass (or both)*, that the DM has said I can't use.
> 
> Am I having fun wrong? Is the DM a big poopy-head for no reason?
> 
> Well:
> Can the DM do whatever they want, or
> Is it the DM's responsibility to make sure I have fun?**


It's true that these positions appear mutually exclusive at first, but surely both you and the DM are adults who can eventually arrive at a compromise. And if you can't, that's fine too, there are other D&D games (or non-D&D ones) in the world. This isn't a rulebook or system problem.

----------


## JackPhoenix

> I've said it multiple times; If your pool of players is limited, you can't really afford for some players to walk away from the table.
> 
> Let's say that D&DB sells a Subclass for $5.
> The player shows up to the session, with that Subclass, that they _paid for_.
> The DM says no.
> 
> Either:
> a) The sale never should've been made in the first place.
> b) The player refunds the sale, nullifying the sale.
> ...


Same goes for the player. If the pool of players is limited, the pool of GMs is even more so. The player either accepts whatever game the GM offers, or doesn't get to play, and is still down 5$.
The actual best solution is not to engage in predatory buisiness practices.




> My..._Fun_...Involves playing a specific Race and/or Subclass (or both)*, that the DM has said I can't use.
> 
> Am I having fun wrong?


Yes.




> *I also conceptualise a scenario in which the player has potentially paid to use this Race and/or Subclass.


That's the his problem. Maybe next time, he'll be more careful with his money.

----------


## Kane0

I'd probably buy D&D monopoly, or maybe catan
D&D cluedo!

----------


## Sigreid

> I've said it multiple times; If your pool of players is limited, you can't really afford for some players to walk away from the table.
> 
> Let's say that D&DB sells a Subclass for $5.
> The player shows up to the session, with that Subclass, that they _paid for_.
> The DM says no.
> 
> Either:
> a) The sale never should've been made in the first place.
> b) The player refunds the sale, nullifying the sale.
> ...


I get all that, but D&D isn't supposed to be an abusive relationship on either side.

----------


## Particle_Man

I have bought for 3.5 The Book of Nine Swords and there are cool classes in it, but my current DM won't use that book in his campaign.  I don't feel down the money I paid - I will just play other characters for now and maybe in the future if I find another DM that allows The Book of Nine Swords I will use a class from that book.

I am joining a 5e campaign and the DM is new and wants to just do core book only for the first campaign.  Fine by me: I will rock my standard human champion fighter outlander.  No multi-classing or feats needed.  I can play other characters later when the DM is ready for expanding the options.

I mean, if a DM doesn't want a player to play subrace X in campaign Z, I assume that is not the only character the player ever wants to play.  They can play something else for now, and keep subrace X in their back pocket for a different DM, or even a different campaign with the same DM.

----------


## Kane0

> I have bought for 3.5 The Book of Nine Swords and there are cool classes in it, but my current DM won't use that book in his campaign.
> 
> I am joining a 5e campaign and the DM is new and wants to just do core book only for the first campaign.  Fine by me: I will rock my standard human champion fighter outlander.


I'd recommend battlemaster over champion, even (especially) in core-only.

----------


## Brookshw

> I've said it multiple times; If your pool of players is limited, you can't really afford for some players to walk away from the table.


 Nah. You can always switch to a game/activity that's non-contentious, or realize them game you want to run isn't the one they want to play, and offer to give the seat to someone who does want to run a game they group wants to play.. I hear a lot about online play as well with strangers (never tried, no opinion). DMs aren't sock puppets and I'll be damned if I ever run for people who expect they can treat me like one.




> Let's say that D&DB sells a Subclass for $5.
> The player shows up to the session, with that Subclass, that they _paid for_.
> The DM says no.
> 
> Either:
> a) The sale never should've been made in the first place.
> b) The player refunds the sale, nullifying the sale.
> c) The DM owes that player $5?


No, they still own their content, and can find somewhere else to use it. 




> The best solution would be to remove the DM's say.


 Worst advice I ever heard on the topic. Alternatively, try discussing other options to play, including how to modify the concerning content so that both sides can accept it.





> For new tables and new players, they would buy into the game without a pre-conceived notion that the 'DM is always right.' That notion has slowly been eroded in the last five years anyway:
> 
> Rule 0 is the DM's job is to make sure the players have fun.
> If the players aren't having fun, it's the DM's fault. #BadDM


Strangely, I've found players tend to kill each other's fun more than the DM.

Edit: to your earlier point, if/when chatAI sufficiently advances, I could see WoTC using that to offer DM-less games via their VTT, but don't see that becoming a mainstay of the hobby or nuking rule 0, but could see it in that specific scenario.

----------


## Segev

They still own the content until WotC decides to edit it because of whatever reasons they choose, at least.

You know the old saw about how WotC won't break into your house and steal your D&D books that are out of date? You can bet that preventing that with digitally-owned content will be a fight.

----------


## Telesphoros

Yeah, much rather own physical books than digital, especially if it's tied to a specific site. They can change the content whenever they like. Remove it if they want. Not offer certain things. Go down for site maintenance. Sell the platform to someone else. Or go away entirely. All in all, it feels like at best I'm renting the material.

----------


## Psyren

> They still own the content until WotC decides to edit it because of whatever reasons they choose, at least.
> 
> You know the old saw about how WotC won't break into your house and steal your D&D books that are out of date? You can bet that preventing that with digitally-owned content will be a fight.


You can stick to physical just fine if that's a concern. For me, seamless and continuous errata is a feature, not a bug.




> Yeah, much rather own physical books than digital, especially if it's tied to a specific site. They can change the content whenever they like. Remove it if they want. Not offer certain things. Go down for site maintenance. Sell the platform to someone else. Or go away entirely. All in all, it feels like at best I'm renting the material.


You're licensing it to be precise (and as above, you don't have to.)




> DMs aren't sock puppets and I'll be damned if I ever run for people who expect they can treat me like one.
> ...
> No, they still own their content, and can find somewhere else to use it. 
> ...
>  Worst advice I ever heard on the topic. Alternatively, try discussing other options to play, including how to modify the concerning content so that both sides can accept it.


^This, plus a healthy dose of backbone will go a long way.




> Edit: to your earlier point, if/when chatAI sufficiently advances, I could see WoTC using that to offer DM-less games via their VTT, but don't see that becoming a mainstay of the hobby or nuking rule 0, but could see it in that specific scenario.


This prospect excites me about the future like few others!

----------


## Brookshw

> This prospect excites me about the future like few others!


It's an interesting prospect, between what we're seeing with AI generated art and chat, I can't imagine it's that far off. Make it available as a subscription model, each player needs a subscription. There's your cash cow. I don't see it replacing real DMs or in person games, but it'll definitely have a place/market.

----------


## Telesphoros

> You can stick to physical just fine if that's a concern. For me, seamless and continuous errata is a feature, not a bug.
> 
> You're licensing it to be precise (and as above, you don't have to.)


For most things, sure, but they don't make everything in physical form.

Yup, renting stuff. Mostly at physical copy price or more... no thanks.

----------


## Particle_Man

> I'd recommend battlemaster over champion, even (especially) in core-only.


Depends if you are going for power or simplicity.  I am old and play in a distracted environment.  "I attack" is about as complex as I wanna get for now.   :Small Smile:

----------


## Psyren

> It's an interesting prospect, between what we're seeing with AI generated art and chat, I can't imagine it's that far off. Make it available as a subscription model, each player needs a subscription. There's your cash cow. I don't see it replacing real DMs or in person games, but it'll definitely have a place/market.


Exactly - it'll be an entirely new avenue of play, especially for groups experiencing DM burnout or other challenges, or simply to test builds and monsters etc.




> For most things, sure, but they don't make everything in physical form.


The rulebooks are though, and as we so often see on this board, that's all people actually need to play D&D. Ancillary products like special statblocks and maps are just that - ancillary.

----------


## Brookshw

> Exactly - it'll be an entirely new avenue of play, especially for groups experiencing DM burnout or other challenges, or simply to test builds and monsters etc.


Possibly round out parties with comp run npcs, or have the comp run a PC if they can't make it that week (maybe replace difficult players who want to treat the DM like a sock puppet). Or, heck, all comp run party with a human DM for when you're just sick of balancing everyone's schedules  :Small Wink:  :Small Big Grin:

----------


## Telesphoros

> The rulebooks are though, and as we so often see on this board, that's all people actually need to play D&D. Ancillary products like special statblocks and maps are just that - ancillary.


A version of some rulebooks. We've been down that road before with SCAG, Volo's, and Tome of Foes. 

Do you consider Adventures to be Ancillary products?

----------


## Segev

> You can stick to physical just fine if that's a concern. For me, seamless and continuous errata is a feature, not a bug.


Oh, it can be, right up until they make errata you hate and don't want to use, and can't access the old version anymore.

Or decide that an entire book is "below standards" (as established by whoever is in charge at the time) and just eliminate it entirely.  Those standards may have nothing to do with rules quality, and could even just be, "The author is somebody we, the current people making these decisions, hate so much we want to wipe all trace of his touch from the game."

Hyperbolic, you might suggest, but there have already been instances of Amazon "removing" movies people have bought on their streaming service, and only restoring after there was a huge backlash and outcry. Sure, in this case, Amazon did credit their accounts with refunds, but they still were out the movie if the outcry hadn't reversed the decision, whereas somebody who owned the DVD or Blue Ray or whatever would not have Amazon breaking into their homes to extract them.

It's not a matter of "oh, you're paranoid; they'd never do that;" it's a matter of whether the possibility exists, and how much that diminishes the value.

Also, unlike, say, my 1e AD&D books that I still have, even decades after TSR went out of business, if WotC is shuttered, who's going to maintain the servers with all your stuff on them? You literally won't be able to play the game anymore if you don't have the books, unless you're really good at doing so from memory. (And if the VTT is so integral to 5.1 and 6e that you can't game without it, that, too, becomes a game with a shelf life that is out of your control.)

Yes, automatic errata is nice.

But I think, if they're going to do online services, until such time as online services and hard copies are both bought as a package - perhaps with a specified code in your hard copy you can enter into your account on D&DB to unlock the e-content - it's going to be less of a money-maker than they think. People don't like being charged twice for things, and people REALLY don't like paying for something that can just poof away.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

And remember that WOTC doesnt exactly have a stirling record in the digital space. How many times have they blackholed content from their forums, website, etc? Even without malicious intent, trusting them to preserve access long term isrisky.

----------


## Psyren

> Oh, it can be, right up until they make errata you hate and don't want to use, and can't access the old version anymore.
> 
> Or decide that an entire book is "below standards" (as established by whoever is in charge at the time) and just eliminate it entirely.  Those standards may have nothing to do with rules quality, and could even just be, "The author is somebody we, the current people making these decisions, hate so much we want to wipe all trace of his touch from the game."
> 
> Hyperbolic, you might suggest, but there have already been instances of Amazon "removing" movies people have bought on their streaming service, and only restoring after there was a huge backlash and outcry. Sure, in this case, Amazon did credit their accounts with refunds, but they still were out the movie if the outcry hadn't reversed the decision, whereas somebody who owned the DVD or Blue Ray or whatever would not have Amazon breaking into their homes to extract them.
> 
> It's not a matter of "oh, you're paranoid; they'd never do that;" it's a matter of whether the possibility exists, and how much that diminishes the value.


You're right, that's a risk you take with any digital content delivery platform. For me, that risk is worthwhile, for others it may not be, and that's okay.




> Also, unlike, say, my 1e AD&D books that I still have, even decades after TSR went out of business, if WotC is shuttered, who's going to maintain the servers with all your stuff on them? You literally won't be able to play the game anymore if you don't have the books, unless you're really good at doing so from memory. (And if the VTT is so integral to 5.1 and 6e that you can't game without it, that, too, becomes a game with a shelf life that is out of your control.)


Not sure what you want me to say to this. Yes, there's a nonzero chance that 1DnD will fail, WotC will implode, DnDBeyond will be shut down, and everything I purchased there will become inaccessible. If that happens, I'll be sad, but I'll move on and play something else; I'm far from destitute. If that risk stops you from investing in a digital platform, that's understandable. Life is risk.




> But I think, if they're going to do online services, until such time as online services and hard copies are both bought as a package - perhaps with a specified code in your hard copy you can enter into your account on D&DB to unlock the e-content - it's going to be less of a money-maker than they think. People don't like being charged twice for things, and people REALLY don't like paying for something that can just poof away.


This is literally what they've started doing as of Dragonlance, so you're in luck.




> A version of some rulebooks. We've been down that road before with SCAG, Volo's, and Tome of Foes.


If you bought those books on DnDBeyond, they still exist. And if you didn't, then their removal from DnDBeyond doesn't affect your purchases.

Your ability to purchase them from WotC is affected - but then, so is your ability to purchase 4th edition PDFs from WotC. No product should be expected to be sold forever.




> Do you consider Adventures to be Ancillary products?


Yes, of course I do. Published adventures are completely unnecessary to play D&D, and even if they were, there are tons of free ones. And if I didn't want any that WotC has to sell, there's always DMsGuild or Kickstarter.

----------


## Sigreid

> Yes, of course I do. Published adventures are completely unnecessary to play D&D, and even if they were, there are tons of free ones. And if I didn't want any that WotC has to sell, there's always DMsGuild or Kickstarter.


I personally think they'd be more profitable with smaller, cheap adventures than the massive expensive adventure paths.  A format that would lend itself extremely well to digital only release.

----------


## Envyus

> I personally think they'd be more profitable with smaller, cheap adventures than the massive expensive adventure paths.  A format that would lend itself extremely well to digital only release.


They already do smaller ones.

----------


## Theoboldi

> Possibly round out parties with comp run npcs, or have the comp run a PC if they can't make it that week (maybe replace difficult players who want to treat the DM like a sock puppet). Or, heck, all comp run party with a human DM for when you're just sick of balancing everyone's schedules


I dread the day when players will be able to reasonably leave the decision making to the AI party member.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

So just thinking some more on this...

If splatbooks are "bloat" and therefore "bad"...

And lore is "inappropriate" outside of campaign settings and therefore should be reduced to a few bland sentences...

And the campaign settings themselves are lackluster and uninspired...

What exactly will I be purchasing to help Hasbro make more money?

Is it really custom dice or something? Is the idea that we're all switching over to VTT and will have to pay subscription fees and buy tokens and stuff? Like... help me envision what's to come. Because I know what I will definitely spend money on... crunchy splatbooks, robust settings, monster manuals with cool lore and minis (well, PLA, STLs, and paint lol).

But if that's not in the works... what is? Tell me what I'll be buying in the near future to help D&D grow to the heights of Icarus infinity and beyond.

----------


## Psyren

> But if that's not in the works... what is? Tell me what I'll be buying in the near future to help D&D grow to the heights of Icarus infinity and beyond.


The stuff they already said they're making in the near future?

----------


## Telesphoros

> So just thinking some more on this...
> 
> If splatbooks are "bloat" and therefore "bad"...
> 
> And lore is "inappropriate" outside of campaign settings and therefore should be reduced to a few bland sentences...
> 
> And the campaign settings themselves are lackluster and uninspired...
> 
> What exactly will I be purchasing to help Hasbro make more money?
> ...




I wouldn't expect a whole lot more in regards to physical books, both in quality or quantity. Judging by the last few releases and the UA releases for OneD&D the designers are in lazy mode in my opinion. The actual game itself is only one pillar of how they're going to monetize D&D and most of that monetization is going to come from DnD Beyond and their new VTT. Physical books don't make them a lot of money (since it basically DMs that buy most of the stuff) and will take a backseat to things like movies/tv shows, video games, and all kinds of D&D branded merch/licsensing. You can get those answers from the 10 minutes or so Hasbro/WotC talks about D&D after the pivot from Magic the Gathering stuff.

You've already got the Spelljammer slipcase and Dragonlance Shadows of a Dragon Queen, right? So buy bundles of the releases next year for physical books and DnD Beyond content. Renew your subscriptions. Buy the associated stuff. There's already stuff like playmats, character folios and whatnot for Keys from the Golden Vault. Alt cover? DM's Screen? Consume, consume, consume! Watch the Honor Among Thieves movie when it comes out March 31st. More than once. Get the Druid's Call and Road to Neverwinter novel tie-ins to the movie. Don't forget the prequel Graphic novel for the movie too. Got your Diceling Owlbears yet? What are you waiting for! Buy all the miniatures. Empty your wallet ad infinitum.  Gotta make D&D a billion dollar brand in the next 5 years.

Yeah, of course you don't really need to buy all that stuff, but they're banking on the people who will.

----------


## Cheesegear

> I hear a lot about online play as well with strangers (never tried, no opinion).


As with 40K; I know D&D can be played online, I know that improvements to online play can and will be made in the future.

But if "online" ever becomes the/my _main_ way of playing D&D (or 40K), I'm pretty sure that would kill the game(s) for me. No small part of that has to do with miniatures.




> DMs aren't sock puppets and I'll be damned if I ever run for people who expect they can treat me like one.
> 
> No, they still own their content, and can find somewhere else to use it.


The problem is that there are two scenarios, and both are terrible:

I want to play an Aaracokra.
No. I wont budge on this so it's best if you leave the table. I'm no sock puppet and I'm not gonna just let you do whatever you want.
Wow. Just...You ban me from the table because I want to play a bird?...Just...Wow.

I want to play an Aaracokra.
No. We're playing a mostly-outdoors campaign and the fact that you can Fly 150 ft. in the air and be effectively invulnerable until mid/late-Tier 2, or how a Fly speed straight up just cancels out a lot of low-level challenges; You'll have an incredibly unfair advantage for a long time and I don't think that that's a good thing.
But that's why I _want_ to play an Aaracokra. **** you, DM. Ruining my fun. You suck - and the bands you like, also suck.

Both scenarios are equally terrible.

But what's _wrong_ with playing an Aaracokra? It's in the book. It's designed to be used. People paid money for the book, and inside the book, was Aaracokra. WotC wants me to play Aaracokra, so why can't the DM let me?

Can't the DM just make **** up as they go along? Why _can't_ they make it so my Aaracokra is fine? There's nothing stopping them. Oh, the DM just _wont let me_, for reasons they can actually totally change. Oh the challenge is to cross a gorge on a rope bridge? ...Well how 'bout the DM just changes the Challenge? Problem solved.*

Isn't D&D supposed to be a player-centric game? Not a DM-centric game? Why does the DM get to tell me how to build _my_ character? I thought I was telling the story. Isn't that what everyone keeps telling me? Why is the DM screwing with my agency at character creation?

*For the record I rewrote my entire campaign to be based around storms and hurricanes. Good luck flying in a storm! ...But I maintain that I shouldn't have had to because that was so much work rewriting challenges and encounters and rewriting entire sections of fluff. Then again, the fact that I _did_ change certain conditions of my campaign, means that yes, it could be actually done and my player was right? ****.




> Worst advice I ever heard on the topic.


As I said, in the last (five?) years, I have noticed a pretty big shift in players' perceptions of what the DM's role, both currently is, and also should be.

That being said, I should note that I _completely disagree_ (except the bit about the power fantasy, it definitely is and/or can be. Nobody wants to play a character who sucks) with what I'm about to say next:

The DM's role, _isn't_ to tell players 'No.' If D&D is an escapist power fantasy; having a DM that says 'No.' is antithetical to that.

----------


## Segev

> The DM's role, _isn't_ to tell players 'No.' If D&D is an escapist power fantasy; having a DM that says 'No.' is antithetical to that.


I mean, sometimes it is, though, too. "No, you can't have a level 20 character; we're playing Sunless Citadel and the others want to start at level 1." "No, you can't find a +5 vorpal sword in the dungeon; I didn't put one there and if I WERE putting custom items in, I'd be putting in that Robe of Useful Items the rogue's been asking about, because it makes more sense here and you already have 2x as many items as the rest of the party combined." "No, you don't get to reroll a third time; just accept that your advantaged roll still failed. Sometimes it happens."

----------


## Psyren

> The problem is that there are two scenarios, and both are terrible:
> 
> I want to play an Aaracokra.
> No. I wont budge on this so it's best if you leave the table. I'm no sock puppet and I'm not gonna just let you do whatever you want.
> Wow. Just...You ban me from the table because I want to play a bird?...Just...Wow.
> 
> I want to play an Aaracokra.
> No. We're playing a mostly-outdoors campaign and the fact that you can Fly 150 ft. in the air and be effectively invulnerable until mid/late-Tier 2, or how a Fly speed straight up just cancels out a lot of low-level challenges; You'll have an incredibly unfair advantage for a long time and I don't think that that's a good thing.
> But that's why I _want_ to play an Aaracokra. **** you, DM. Ruining my fun. You suck - and the bands you like, also suck.
> ...


Are these really the only two scenarios you can imagine? Truly?

----------


## Cheesegear

> Are these really the only two scenarios you can imagine? Truly?


As I said following that, playing an Aaracokra is not _unreasonable_. Neither is playing a Twilight Cleric. Neither is playing an [Insert Subclass] Sorcerer. Neither is playing a Moon Druid. Neither is playing Warforged. Neither is a Gloomstalker. Neither is playing something that makes no sense in the DM's arbitrary homebrew.
No. I understand you don't have Leonin in your world. But you know you're the DM, right? You know you can just put some in anywhere you want. Why _wont_ you just _put_ Leonin in your world? You know you _can_ and there's nothing stopping you. Why are you singling me out? Everyone else get to play what they want...But I want to play a Leonin Bard and suddenly I'm not allowed to play what I want?

What's _unreasonable_ is that WotC put those things in the game, in the first place (and D&DB giving everyone access to everything). Now that they're there, what _can_ the DM do, except ruin players' fun that want to play those things?

A lot of times, in a fictional game of fictional make-pretend with your friends, saying _'No.'_, is actually the unreasonable thing.

Sometimes, when a DM puts their foot down, they look like an a**hole. Because it is a fictional game of fictional make-pretend with your friends, and the DM's arbitrary likes and dislikes don't hold water, when the aim of the game, is "To Have Fun."

----------


## Psyren

> What's _unreasonable_ is that WotC put those things in the game, in the first place (and D&DB giving everyone access to everything). Now that they're there, what _can_ the DM do, except ruin players' fun that want to play those things?


Talk it out like adults? Compromise, even?

----------


## Cheesegear

> Talk it out like adults? Compromise, even?


There is no compromise.

You have to convince the player that no, they aren't actually a furry and they don't want to actually play a Leonin. Or,
The player convinces you to put Leonin in your adventure.

To me, it still seems like one side loses. You can either play a Leonin because the DM gives in, or you can't, because the DM doesn't.

...Unless the compromise is that the player plays a Shifter? ...But that doesn't seem like like a compromise.




> I dread the day when players will be able to reasonably leave the decision making to the AI party member.


I dread the day when AI party members will be able to leave the decision making to the AI party members.

----------


## Unoriginal

Cheesegear, no one can logically defend the 'the DM's job isn't to say "no"' position. As their respective names indicates:


1) The *Game Master* is the master of the game, a role which includes choosing everything that is or isn't in the game.

2) It is then up to the *players* to choose if they want to play that specific game. 


A key role of the Dungeon Master is to say "no". It's not the ONLY job, far from it, but saying "no" is a capital part of the task, and a tool one needs to master to be Dungeon Master.

If it is not the job of the DM to say "no", then the tabletop RPG is just unrestrained imagination, and there is nothing stopping a player from going "actually, my character got 30 in all stats and has a permanent flight that cannot be hindered by anything". 

The DM saying "you roll 1d20 for ability checks, like it's said in the book" is the DM saying "no" to using all of the other dice.  A player cannot decide "actually, I'm gonna use 3d6 for this ability check" on their own. If the DM decides to homebrew that ability checks actually use 3d6 at their table, it's up to them.

What is up to the player is if they continue to play with a DM who tells them "no" on X topic. 

The goal of the game is to have fun, sure, but it doesn't change that DMs and players have fundamentally different ways of investing in and interacting with the game, and it's the DM who selects every single of the game's parts in the end. If the players don't find those limits fun, and the DM insists on those limits, they should vote with their feet.


Furthermore, there is nothing wrong/terrible about a player not playing because they want a Bird-Person as a PC and the DM doesn't want to have a Bird-Person as a PC. It's the natural consequences of people wanting different things, and it should be celebrated as two persons accepting each other's boundaries.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> I wouldn't expect a whole lot more in regards to physical books, both in quality or quantity. Judging by the last few releases and the UA releases for OneD&D the designers are in lazy mode in my opinion.


I think "lazy" might be a good word for it. And I think it goes beyond the core game as well. The critical role animated series was perfectly mediocre, maybe even a bit cringey at times. 

The new movie coming out looks... serviceable. It's not my cup of tea; I think there's so much good lore and story in D&D that a movie that takes itself seriously is warranted. But maybe this goofy comedy will be the springboard for better stuff.

But yeah, can't wait for the giants book: _Frost giants can be found in arctic regions. But many can be found in sub-tropical and even tropical regions. They wear the skins and furs of polar animals, or clothing made out of banana leaves, it depends. Many frost giants worship the evil god Thrym, and just as many instead worship the goodly god Santa Claus. Just as many worship no gods at all, or all the gods. Just think of anything that can be said about anyone, and it applies to all the monsters in this book. If you want to use stats for frost giants in your game, please purchase our accompanying board game._

----------


## Brookshw

> Sometimes, when a DM puts their foot down, they look like an a**hole. Because it is a fictional game of fictional make-pretend with your friends, and the DM's arbitrary likes and dislikes don't hold water, when the aim of the game, is "To Have Fun."


The DM has to balance fun across the table, between the players and for themselves. I've definitely said "no" to things because it created to much power imbalance between players and left others having less fun. Same goes for the DM is also entitled to have fun, as are players who expect a coherent world, not one of special snowflake itis. That a thing is published, doesn't mean its automatically included, never has, might not ever (though they sure are using that marketing opportunity of "its a multiverse, you can buy our products and cram them into every setting"). 

"Arbitrary likes and dislikes" is a dumb reason, if you're actually saying "no" to something for arbitrary reasons, then you might want to re-evaluate that approach; if you're saying "no" for a reason, there's your opportunity to talk it out like adults. _You want to play a bird person? Well, Aaracokra are pretty imbalanced power-wise against other races/species, how about a Ravenfolk from Kobold Press?_ Or whatever, you don't need a bunch of examples of how to discuss thing like an adult. Also, letting something in and then passive aggressively nerfing it by constant storms is a bad way to build trust at the table, better to discuss. 




> But yeah, can't wait for the giants book: _Frost giants can be found in arctic regions. But many can be found in sub-tropical and even tropical regions. They wear the skins and furs of polar animals, or clothing made out of banana leaves, it depends. Many frost giants worship the evil god Thrym, and just as many instead worship the goodly god Santa Claus. Just as many worship no gods at all, or all the gods. Just think of anything that can be said about anyone, and it applies to all the monsters in this book. If you want to use stats for frost giants in your game, please purchase our accompanying board game._


I laughed. Too accurate.

----------


## Segev

> There is no compromise.
> 
> You have to convince the player that no, they aren't actually a furry and they don't want to actually play a Leonin. Or,
> The player convinces you to put Leonin in your adventure.
> 
> To me, it still seems like one side loses. You can either play a Leonin because the DM gives in, or you can't, because the DM doesn't.
> 
> ...Unless the compromise is that the player plays a Shifter? ...But that doesn't seem like like a compromise.


Since when did you have to be a furry to play a Leonin, or have to play a Leonin if you're a furry? A huge part of playing characters in an RPG is playing something other than what you are. Not that you can't go for "idealized version of yourself," but you certainly are not required to, and if the "idealized version of yourself" doesn't fit the game, perhaps it is appropriate to play something else. 

Is the DM being a terrible DM and a mean person who should alter his game setting when he tells you that you can't play a starfleet officer wielding a non-magical phaser that casts "disintegrate" and single-target "sleep" at will in his Tomb of Annihilation game? 

Sure, he _could_ find a way to add what you want into the game. But why should he? Should he remove alignment from the game if you don't want to have to pick one? Should he include alignment when he doesn't want it just because you want to have it? What if another player wants the opposite?

The DM is the one running the game. He does get to - and even must - say "no" from time to time.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> If the future of D&D is that we're all playing teleporting furries with fly speeds and swords that shoot lasers out of the blades, I would not consider that to be a "better" product.


 Nor would I, but there may be a market for that game. 



> Diablo Immortal is, according to some people, a very good game.


 It is the only Diablo product I have not purchased, nor will I ever.



> I hate that guys videos and have never agreed with him.


 He made an excellent point.  



> A certain section of the player base is more likely to have reviewed the material and just checked out instead of responding than other sections.


 And WoTC doesn't get to hear from them.  Self selection of survey audiences is an issue survey builders wrestle with for good reasons. 


> There are people who have been playing D&D since the 1970s and '80s. There are 60 year-olds, who make up the audience of D&D.


 *waves to Cheesegear*  :Small Smile: 



> Google Bank of America and Hasbro.


 Will check that out.  



> I'm actually envisioning a future where if it's "official", the DM doesn't actually _get_ to disallow it.


 That's adventurers league.  If I choose to DM, and there is content I don't care for, it doesn't exist.  End of.  



> What? You think you're better than WotC?
> Oh FFS.


My response is "OK, you DM for this campaign." 
*Shuts books, stacks up stuff next to chair, grabs 4d6 and begins rolling for character abilities*  
Again, a core reason that I came back to D&D was that my brother promised me that I'd not be the DM.  
So here I am, a DM again, but I also am in games where someone else is a DM (Kurt Kurageous has us in a Strahd campaign, woot! PhoenixPhyre has us in campaign 2, woot!) so I have made peace with that.  



> I'd probably buy D&D monopoly, or maybe catan... D&D cluedo!


I might offer those as Christmas gifts to selected folks on my list. 



> How many times have they blackholed content from their forums, website, etc?


 Yeah, their track record on that is not impressive.

----------


## Cheesegear

> If the players don't find those limits fun, and the DM insists on those limits, they should vote with their feet.


My point - as is the general point of this thread - is where do I see the game going?

I can legitimately see a point in time - soon - where the players tell the DM what they want, and it's the DM's job to run what the players ask for.

I believe that the game is heading towards a player-directed game, not a DM-directed game. I've seen some people say that not only _should_ this be future...It's already here. Players don't like being told 'No.', players _do_ like it when they are the "main characters", the world revolves around them specifically, and their back_story_ (not their Background), is the single most-important part of their character.

We already see tables where characters _can't_ die, because that's how integral that, specific character is to the story being told (as opposed to the game, being played).

I can also see that this will likely be Hell. As for many _current_ DMs - myself included, and many in this thread - this represents a fundamental philosophical shift in how the game is played. With the end result being that DMs don't want to DM anymore, or, players simply not liking having DMs (many _already_ don't).

I don't know what DM-less D&D looks like. But that's the direction I feel like we're heading.

Maybe, just maybe, what I've seen/read/heard is a result of the explosion in customers throughout the pandemic. Maybe now that it's gone (relatively...You know what I mean), maybe that narcissistic (?) audience does, too? I can hope...But I've also seen some people genuinely believe that _Radiant Citadel_ is better than _Rime of the Frostmaiden_...Which I mean...Like...That's certainly an opinion they can have...I just really want to know how they got it.

----------


## IsaacsAlterEgo

> My point - as is the general point of this thread - is where do I see the game going?
> 
> I can legitimately see a point in time - soon - where the players tell the DM what they want, and it's the DM's job to run what the players ask for.
> 
> I believe that the game is heading towards a player-directed game, not a DM-directed game. I've seen some people say that not only _should_ this be future...It's already here. Players don't like being told 'No.', players _do_ like it when they are the "main characters", the world revolves around them specifically, and their back_story_ (not their Background), is the single most-important part of their character.
> 
> We already see tables where characters _can't_ die, because that's how integral that, specific character is to the story being told (as opposed to the game, being played).
> 
> I can also see that this will likely be Hell. As for many _current_ DMs - myself included, and many in this thread - this represents a fundamental philosophical shift in how the game is played. With the end result being that DMs don't want to DM anymore, or, players simply not liking having DMs (many _already_ don't).
> ...


Almost every game I've played in during my time with 5e (both as player and DM) has been the "Hell" you describe, which I find rather amusing because the games I've enjoyed the least are the ones that stray the farthest from your description here. I think "Narcissistic" is an unfair assessment of a group of people who simply value creativity and see DnD as a cooperative storytelling game, rather than a wargame.  You should try playing in one of these more modern styled games, I think you might be surprised how much you enjoy it.

----------


## Sigreid

> My point - as is the general point of this thread - is where do I see the game going?
> 
> I can legitimately see a point in time - soon - where the players tell the DM what they want, and it's the DM's job to run what the players ask for.
> 
> I believe that the game is heading towards a player-directed game, not a DM-directed game. I've seen some people say that not only _should_ this be future...It's already here. Players don't like being told 'No.', players _do_ like it when they are the "main characters", the world revolves around them specifically, and their back_story_ (not their Background), is the single most-important part of their character.
> 
> We already see tables where characters _can't_ die, because that's how integral that, specific character is to the story being told (as opposed to the game, being played).
> 
> I can also see that this will likely be Hell. As for many _current_ DMs - myself included, and many in this thread - this represents a fundamental philosophical shift in how the game is played. With the end result being that DMs don't want to DM anymore, or, players simply not liking having DMs (many _already_ don't).
> ...


I'd say that all of this means that not everyone should be welcomed at every table.  Every table I've ever played at has developed its own feel, and the group shouldn't allow anyone at their table that isn't willing to go with that feel.

----------


## Unoriginal

D&D cannot be directed by the players. "D&D, but  the players can compel the DM to act a certain way if they've bought the right rulebook" was nothing but a merchandizing gimmick WotC tried for 3.X, with disastrous results that are felt to this day.

Maybe Hasbro will try the same gimmick, but so far D&Done doesn't seem to go that way.

----------


## Segev

> D&D cannot be directed by the players. "D&D, but  the players can compel the DM to act a certain way if they've bought the right rulebook" was nothing but a merchandizing gimmick WotC tried for 3.X, with disastrous results that are felt to this day.
> 
> Maybe Hasbro will try the same gimmick, but so far D&Done doesn't seem to go that way.


Er, where in 3e did WotC ever say that players could force the DM to use a rulebook just because the player bought it?

----------


## Psyren

> It is the only Diablo product I have not purchased, nor will I ever.


I assume you meant "will not spend money on" since it's free to play  :Small Tongue: 




> There is no compromise.
> 
> You have to convince the player that no, they aren't actually a furry and they don't want to actually play a Leonin. Or,
> The player convinces you to put Leonin in your adventure.
> 
> To me, it still seems like one side loses. You can either play a Leonin because the DM gives in, or you can't, because the DM doesn't.
> 
> ...Unless the compromise is that the player plays a Shifter? ...But that doesn't seem like like a compromise.


Again I have to ask, are those really the only possibilities you can imagine? Because if so, I think there are deeper problems with the way you engage with the game than any game company can reasonably be expected to solve.

Also, even if you did need to be a "furry" to want to play a Leonin (which... you don't),  2022/2023 is considerably late to be treating "furry" as though it's some global internet pejorative to be discouraged on sight.




> I think "lazy" might be a good word for it. And I think it goes beyond the core game as well. The critical role animated series was perfectly mediocre, maybe even a bit cringey at times.


I didn't find Vox Machina particularly groundbreaking as a D&D aficionado either. But I do appreciate what it represents - another way to mainstream D&D tropes and themes. We're in a pretty exciting zeitgeist right now.




> I can legitimately see a point in time - soon - where the players tell the DM what they want, and it's the DM's job to run what the players ask for.


To repeat my question from earlier in the thread, how do you see that being enforced? No one can be forced to DM. At best, for such an approach to work the DM would need to be compensated for their time - in which case, the market will pair up the DMs who don't mind player direction with the players willing to pay for that service.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> I assume you meant "will not spend money on" since it's free to play


 Sorry, it's the only one I have not installed, nor will I ever. 



> To repeat my question from earlier in the thread, how do you see that being enforced? No one can be forced to DM.


 Correct.  :Small Smile:

----------


## Cheesegear

> I think "Narcissistic" is an unfair assessment of a group of people who simply value creativity and see DnD as a cooperative storytelling game, rather than a wargame.


I'll admit the word is _stacked_ with negative connotations. Narcissism isn't neccessarily a bad thing - unless it becomes a personality disorder, but that's a whole different kettle of fish and nothing to do with this thread. Just...Narcissism and NPD aren't the same thing.

But, if you're playing a game where you get everything you want, and things rarely - if ever - go wrong, and your self-insert escapist power fantasy is turned up to 11, in the escapism, power, and fantasy...That _is_ the word I'm looking for. The game is very much focused around _you_, and not only your ability to succeed, but also your inability to fail. I'm pretty sure I'm using the right word. 

Self-insert escapist power fantasy. It's on the tin... Isn't it? How many people want to roleplay as a character that sucks?

----------


## Sigreid

> I'll admit the word is _stacked_ with negative connotations. Narcissism isn't neccessarily a bad thing - unless it becomes a personality disorder, but that's a whole different kettle of fish and nothing to do with this thread. Just...Narcissism and NPD aren't the same thing.
> 
> But, if you're playing a game where you get everything you want, and things rarely - if ever - go wrong, and your self-insert escapist power fantasy is turned up to 11, in the escapism, power, and fantasy...That _is_ the word I'm looking for. The game is very much focused around _you_, and not only your ability to succeed, but also your inability to fail. I'm pretty sure I'm using the right word. 
> 
> Self-insert escapist power fantasy. It's on the tin... Isn't it? How many people want to roleplay as a character that sucks?


Might I suggest AMCS, Anime Main Character Syndrome?

----------


## Unoriginal

> Er, where in 3e did WotC ever say that players could force the DM to use a rulebook just because the player bought it?


They were smart enough not to directly state it, but the expectation they were selling wasvery much 'if you buy this book, you can add X number of options to your character creation, and if the DM disagrees RAW is on your side", not 'if you buy this book, and find a DM who let you do it, you may have a certain percentage of X new options'.

Again, it was just a presentation gimmick to sell more books, but even nowadays you have people who think that you can point out to sonething written in the books and it trumps whatever the DM says.

----------


## Cheesegear

> To repeat my question from earlier in the thread, how do you see that being enforced?


You know how in the PHB/DMG there's a section that's like _The Role of the DM_. It'll be in there, and players will point to that.

As for it being _enforced_? It wont be. As I've said repeatedly, nothing at all will change for _current_ DMs, who have played 20, 30, 40 years under one particular mindset.

Take 40K, for example:
How can we _enforce_ that people call them Drukharii, and not 'Dark Eldar.'?
You can't.
What you can do, however, is change the name to Drukharii, and use the word as often as you can.
As the old guard leave, and new blood come in...New Blood wont even know what Dark Eldar are, all's they've ever heard of, is Drukharii. Then hopefully, a few years down the track, you hear a teenager ask an old grognard:

What's a Dark Eldar?
Like the evil version of Eldar.
You mean like Aeldari? Like the Craftworld Aeldari?
No, I mean...What? When did 'Eldar' get an "A" and an "I" tacked onto it?
Oh...Dark Eldar...Aeldari. I get it. You mean Drukharii.
...Am I old?
The future is now, old man.
Aside from the _Malcolm in the Middle_ reference, I actually overheard this conversation last year or so.

That being said, nothing will be enforced. But it will be progressed.
There will be old, grognard DMs who insist that they're always right.
And there will be new DMs, who enter into D&D under let's say...7th Ed.'s new status quo of the DM's job being to enable players.
Eventually, one way or the other, the grognards will stop playing, and all's that will be left is the new way of doing things.

It's a story as old as [insert many, many, many progressive real-world examples where the older generation just...Fades out of relevancy. Nothing gets enforced. It's just that the old way is outdated and nobody does it anymore.]

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> They were smart enough not to directly state it, but the expectation they were selling wasvery much 'if you buy this book, you can add X number of options to your character creation, and if the DM disagrees RAW is on your side", not 'if you buy this book, and find a DM who let you do it, you may have a certain percentage of X new options'.
> 
> Again, it was just a presentation gimmick to sell more books, but even nowadays you have people who think that you can point out to sonething written in the books and it trumps whatever the DM says.


I'm still not sure what was marketed as "if you buy a book, your DM MUST allow it" during 3.X's run.  Back then, just as now, just as when I started in 2e AD&D, as a DM, if there was a book or part of a book I wasn't comfortable using, I wouldn't allow it.  No player ever claimed I couldn't do that as DM in any edition I played in, and sure as heck couldn't find a printed rule that said players override the DM when it comes to what splatbook options are allowed.

As a player in all those editions, I not once saw anything printed anywhere that allowed me by RAW to overrule the DM....  do you have a link to the specific book that says this?  I'm genuinely curious about this now.

----------


## Psyren

> You know how in the PHB/DMG there's a section that's like _The Role of the DM_. It'll be in there, and players will point to that.


So you're imagining a hypothetical future DMG that says _"Greetings! Your job as Dungeon Master is to be a doormat punchcard machine that does only what the players ask you to do and is never allowed to say no. Accept this."_ Do I have that right?




> But, if you're playing a game where you get everything you want, and things rarely - if ever - go wrong, and your self-insert escapist power fantasy is turned up to 11, in the escapism, power, and fantasy...That _is_ the word I'm looking for. The game is very much focused around _you_, and not only your ability to succeed, but also your inability to fail. I'm pretty sure I'm using the right word. 
> 
> Self-insert escapist power fantasy. It's on the tin... Isn't it? How many people want to roleplay as a character that sucks?


"A character that doesn't suck" =/= "A character that never fails"

----------


## IsaacsAlterEgo

> I'll admit the word is _stacked_ with negative connotations. Narcissism isn't neccessarily a bad thing - unless it becomes a personality disorder, but that's a whole different kettle of fish and nothing to do with this thread. Just...Narcissism and NPD aren't the same thing.
> 
> But, if you're playing a game where you get everything you want, and things rarely - if ever - go wrong, and your self-insert escapist power fantasy is turned up to 11, in the escapism, power, and fantasy...That _is_ the word I'm looking for. The game is very much focused around _you_, and not only your ability to succeed, but also your inability to fail. I'm pretty sure I'm using the right word. 
> 
> Self-insert escapist power fantasy. It's on the tin... Isn't it? How many people want to roleplay as a character that sucks?


I personally quite enjoy roleplaying characters that suck, role-play wise rather than mechanically, people with flaws and problems are generally much more interesting. Obviously playing a character that can accomplish nothing mechanically, though, is similarly un-fun to being able to get everything you want no matter what, but I don't really see "character death is heavily discouraged" the same as having a 100% success rate. In most games I play in, it is fairly understood amongst the group that because the story is about our characters, killing a character usually only happens during important story moments. That is until resurrection magic is free and easy to access, anyway, after that the understanding is mostly just that the party isn't interested in being TPKed or having characters die in such a way that renders resurrection impossible, again, unless it is during an important story moment of some kind.

There are other kinds of failures, anyway. You lose the trust of the important NPC your character cared about because you messed up, you let an NPC die, you failed to get the Thing you were searching for all these years because the bad guys got there first, you said the wrong thing and now an entire faction is your enemy. Of course, you have to play with a group that trusts each other and has a certain amount of buy-in; it must be understood that you can't use this sort of 'Plot armor' to just pick fights with anyone and everything in order to get your way, and generally, it hasn't been a problem in games I have been in.

----------


## truemane

> My point - as is the general point of this thread - is where do I see the game going?
> 
> [SNIP]


Death, taxes and _the kids these days_. The only three constants.

It's constantly strange to me how this pattern repeats, almost word for word, again and again over time. It's like when you read that quote from Socrates in 300 some-odd BC where he's like "the kids these days don't listen to their parents and they only want to party and I fear for the future when they're in charge!"

I remember when proficiencies were added to 1E. I remember when the Barbarian and the Cavalier were introduced. I even remember when the Wilderness and Dungeoneer's Guide were published, and suddenly everyone's homebrewed rules for these things were overridden by canon.

Same arguments. Same fights. Same eye-rolling lament about where the game is headed and how can it be good if it's not what I'm used to and the kids these days, the kids these days, the kids these days.

And here's the thing: even if you're right and this is where 'the game' is headed, it doesn't matter. The basic interaction here is the same as it's always been: you sit down at a table and you say "This is the experience I would like to have. Does that match the experience you would like to have?" And then you talk about it. And you form a consensus. And anyone who doesn't like that consensus has the choice to either accept it and move on, or find something else to do. That's the same as it's always been.

If there is a difference, it's that Back in the DayTM, the range of accepted configurations was narrow enough that most of that process, for most tables, was assumed and nonverbal. Whereas now it's important to be able to clearly articulate what kind of game you want to play.

You might think it's insane that a DM would sit down and ask the players whether or not they want their characters to be able to die, but I do just that for every new campaign I run and every new group I sit with. And I've been doing it since the early 90's. I ask. I lay out some of the options that have worked for me in the past, we talk about it, and we come to a consensus.

And the world hasn't end. The hobby hasn't yet collapsed in on itself in an orgy of self-importance. The millennials didn't rise up with their internets and Instagrams and cast the Grognards from their beardy thrones.

Even if the plurality of players do want only good things to happen, to never fail at anything, to never take damage, to have infinite options and no restrictions, _you're still allowed to run your game however you like_. And, like every DM everywhere, since the dawn of Gygax, you'll attract and retain players at a rate determined by the intersection of your ability and their options.

It's one thing if you're being prevented from running a game the way you want (I honestly don't know how this would be possible, but let's say it is), but if you can still do what you want but you're upset that other (younger) people are doing it differently?

That's Old Man Yells at Cloud territory.

And if that's your thing, that's fine. You're allowed. I'd be happy to introduce you to a couple of 45 year old guys I know who are still upset about THAC0.




> ...but even nowadays you have people who think that you can point out to sonething written in the books and it trumps whatever the DM says.


This isn't nowadays. This is all the days. Right from the very murkiest beginnings of pre-1E. if anything, it was worse then, because the various subsystems evolved and were developed over time. So there was this constant tension between what a DM had been doing up to this point, and then what's 'supposed to happen' after a new book comes out.

I have this discussion with every new group in RL, as part of a larger discussion about resolving conflict. My Session 0 always includes a discussion about where the final authority lies while the game is in session. Is it with me, the DM? Or is it with the books? And there are benefits and liabilities of each.

I've found that, like a whole pile of things we can't discuss on this forum, it's one of those things that feels so simple and basic and obvious that it feels insane to discuss it. Until you start discussing it with different kinds of people. And you find that everyone has a different take on it that feels so basic and simple and obvious to them that they _also_ can't believe we're discussing it.

Until they do.

----------


## Psyren

> Death, taxes and _the kids these days_. The only three constants.
> 
> It's constantly strange to me how this pattern repeats, almost word for word, again and again over time. It's like when you read that quote from Socrates in 300 some-odd BC where he's like "the kids these days don't listen to their parents and they only want to party and I fear for the future when they're in charge!"
> ...
> It's one thing if you're being prevented from running a game the way you want (I honestly don't know how this would be possible, but let's say it is), but if you can still do what you want but you're upset that other (younger) people are doing it differently?
> 
> That's Old Man Yells at Cloud territory.
> 
> And if that's your thing, that's fine. You're allowed. I'd be happy to introduce you to a couple of 45 year old guys I know who are still upset about THAC0.


Well said (including the part I snipped for space).

Also, https://xkcd.com/1601/.




> This isn't nowadays. This is all the days. Right from the very murkiest beginnings of pre-1E. if anything, it was worse then, because the various subsystems evolved and were developed over time. So there was this constant tension between what a DM had been doing up to this point, and then what's 'supposed to happen' after a new book comes out.
> 
> I have this discussion with every new group in RL, as part of a larger discussion about resolving conflict. My Session 0 always includes a discussion about where the final authority lies while the game is in session. Is it with me, the DM? Or is it with the books? And there are benefits and liabilities of each.
> 
> I've found that, like a whole pile of things we can't discuss on this forum, it's one of those things that feels so simple and basic and obvious that it feels insane to discuss it. Until you start discussing it with different kinds of people. And you find that everyone has a different take on it that feels so basic and simple and obvious to them that they _also_ can't believe we're discussing it.
> 
> Until they do.


Exactly - and understanding that concept, is perhaps the best way to understand some of the moves WotC makes, especially recently. Because _they are_ talking to different people - lots, and lots, and lots of different people. And pulling data through avenues and across playgroups we don't even know exist.

This isn't to say corporations are perfect, or even benevolent - but one thing they don't have, is the luxury to ignore which way the wind might be blowing. For so long as their self-interest and desire to expand the hobby happens to coincide with my own, I'm on board.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Lol

_"You're just an old grumpy alarmist, spewing tired old nonsensical complaints. People have said these things in the past, therefore they are meaningless now. No one has ever stopped playing D&D before due to no longer liking how it's going. No edition has ever failed before. No decision has ever spawned a direct competitor. No company has ever handled monetization poorly. I'm still playing D&D after all these years, so any concern you have that you might not like what's to come is invalid."_

Well, I don't know about the rest of you but I'm convinced.

----------


## Brookshw

> Lol
> 
> _"You're just an old grumpy alarmist, spewing tired old nonsensical complaints. People have said these things in the past, therefore they are meaningless now. No one has ever stopped playing D&D before due to no longer liking how it's going. No edition has ever failed before. No decision has ever spawned a direct competitor. No company has ever handled monetization poorly. I'm still playing D&D after all these years, so any concern you have that you might not like what's to come is invalid."_
> 
> Well, I don't know about the rest of you but I'm convinced.


_"When it's swung too far in a bad direction, it's self corrected."_

Sure, there's comfort in that.

----------


## Psyren

> Lol
> 
> _"You're just an old grumpy alarmist, spewing tired old nonsensical complaints. People have said these things in the past, therefore they are meaningless now. No one has ever stopped playing D&D before due to no longer liking how it's going. No edition has ever failed before. No decision has ever spawned a direct competitor. No company has ever handled monetization poorly. I'm still playing D&D after all these years, so any concern you have that you might not like what's to come is invalid."_
> 
> Well, I don't know about the rest of you but I'm convinced.


No one is saying expressing concerns is invalid.

But believing that this:




> I can legitimately see a point in time - soon - where the players tell the DM what they want, and it's the DM's job to run what the players ask for.
> 
> I believe that the game is heading towards a player-directed game, not a DM-directed game. I've seen some people say that not only _should_ this be future...It's already here. Players don't like being told 'No.', players _do_ like it when they are the "main characters", the world revolves around them specifically, and their back_story_ (not their Background), is the single most-important part of their character.


will somehow be the only way to play the game in the future, has no basis.

And furthermore, implying that this:




> We already see tables where characters _can't_ die, because that's how integral that, specific character is to the story being told (as opposed to the game, being played).
> 
> I can also see that this will likely be Hell.


is somehow a universally invalid or negative way to play, has no basis either.

----------


## Atranen

There's a lot of good stuff said already; I think Cheesegear's point is solid, and probably most obvious in AL games, which I take part in regularly. In that scenario, there's no opportunity for a discussion, the books are the law, and the law says you can play a Twilight Cleric if you want. In practice, it means a lot of the more abuseable or broken things in the rules get abused, and I'm left in a situation as DM where I'm not happy with something but powerless to change it. 

Ok, fine, that's part of the territory with organized play; couldn't I do something else? Well organized play fits a niche that a like; playing in person and being able to introduce the game to new people. I also travel a lot and it's much easier to jump in and out of than an in person campaign. 

As new races and subclasses etc. have come out, there's been a real loss of thematic cohesion in a lot of these games. I go in now, and there's Yuan-Ti and Tabaxi running around parts of the Forgotten Realms they have no business being. 

As for in person games, the tables I'm in have generally had no problem adopting the thematic and balance constraints the DM wants. But I agree that it's less clear to DMs that they can (or ought to) enforce those sorts of constraints. And in my experience there is a divide here between people who came in pre-5e (who are good with this) and post-5e (who don't seem to get the DM can do it). That could just be my sample, but I suspect it's more wide-ranging.

----------


## Psyren

> There's a lot of good stuff said already; I think Cheesegear's point is solid, and probably most obvious in AL games, which I take part in regularly. In that scenario, there's no opportunity for a discussion, the books are the law, and the law says you can play a Twilight Cleric if you want. In practice, it means a lot of the more abuseable or broken things in the rules get abused, and I'm left in a situation as DM where I'm not happy with something but powerless to change it. 
> 
> Ok, fine, that's part of the territory with organized play; couldn't I do something else? Well organized play fits a niche that a like; playing in person and being able to introduce the game to new people. I also travel a lot and it's much easier to jump in and out of than an in person campaign.


How do you define "abuseable and broken?" Because AL curtails the stuff I would put under that category, like Simulacrum Wishes and the like. If you just mean stuff like "the players showed up with a Peace cleric and a Hexblade" - I'd consider that powerful, but hardly broken. Similarly, you have a lot more leeway than you think even in AL, e.g. with things like Conjure Animals. Certainly it's far, far more than we had in prior editions sanctioned play.




> As new races and subclasses etc. have come out, there's been a real loss of thematic cohesion in a lot of these games. I go in now, and there's Yuan-Ti and Tabaxi running around parts of the Forgotten Realms they have no business being.


Adventurers often venture far from home, and meddle in affairs well beyond their borders. Their business tends to be what they decide it is. If those two races are allowed in AL, which they are, it's because they can be found in FR and that should really be the only concern from an organized play perspective.




> As for in person games, the tables I'm in have generally had no problem adopting the thematic and balance constraints the DM wants. But I agree that it's less clear to DMs that they can (or ought to) enforce those sorts of constraints. And in my experience there is a divide here between people who came in pre-5e (who are good with this) and post-5e (who don't seem to get the DM can do it). That could just be my sample, but I suspect it's more wide-ranging.


I genuinely don't see how they could make it clearer that the DM is in charge than they already do (mandatory assertiveness training?) Is there something that existed in prior editions perhaps that you're not seeing here? And if those editions didn't have that either, perhaps your "divide" thesis is suspect.

----------


## Joe the Rat

> I believe that the game is heading towards a player-directed game, not a DM-directed game. I've seen some people say that not only _should_ this be future...It's already here. Players don't like being told 'No.', players _do_ like it when they are the "main characters", the world revolves around them specifically, and their back_story_ (not their Background), is the single most-important part of their character.


Powered by the Apocalypse games.  You even can try to pull the "I have the playbook for it, I should be able to play it" thing.
That's _Dungeon World_ if you want semi-solipsistic D&D.

----------


## Atranen

> How do you define "abuseable and broken?" Because AL curtails the stuff I would put under that category, like Simulacrum Wishes and the like. If you just mean stuff like "the players showed up with a Peace cleric and a Hexblade" - I'd consider that powerful, but hardly broken. Similarly, you have a lot more leeway than you think even in AL, e.g. with things like Conjure Animals. Certainly it's far, far more than we had in prior editions sanctioned play.


So much stronger than other options as to make people feel they are contributing significantly less. 




> Adventurers often venture far from home, and meddle in affairs well beyond their borders. Their business tends to be what they decide it is. If those two races are allowed in AL, which they are, it's because they can be found in FR and that should really be the only concern from an organized play perspective.


That they can be there does not make it normal; games don't have the time to go into detail about each characters backstory, and running around with a menagerie of extremely rare species is rarely narratively cohesive. 




> I genuinely don't see how they could make it clearer that the DM is in charge than they already do (mandatory assertiveness training?) Is there something that existed in prior editions perhaps that you're not seeing here? And if those editions didn't have that either, perhaps your "divide" thesis is suspect.


I don't think it's anything that is written in the rules as much as a culture shift.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I don't think it's anything that is written in the rules as much as a culture shift.


Agreed. That's what I'm seeing--not explicit words, but definitely a developer culture thing. An expectation that the default state will be "anything goes" and that blocking things is expected to be both rare and for very particular reasons. Especially in published settings.

----------


## Psyren

> So much stronger than other options as to make people feel they are contributing significantly less. 
> ...
> I don't think it's anything that is written in the rules as much as a culture shift.


I don't think it's a shift at all, or at the very least not a downward one. In 3.5 sanctioned play, nothing could stop me from showing up with a Planar Shepherd either, or Incantatrix, or Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. And those were far, far worse for balance than anything seen in 5e.

I'm sympathetic if sanctioned play is the only option you have for in-person gaming, but they can hardly restrict the options in the game at large because a handful of people have less than fortunate circumstances. Be the change you want to see and avoid AL.




> That they can be there does not make it normal; games don't have the time to go into detail about each characters backstory, and running around with a menagerie of extremely rare species is rarely narratively cohesive.


Normal people usually don't become adventurers. Imagine if someone walked up to you on the street and told you their job was "adventurer", you'd think they were a basket case. Even in D&D worlds, it's not that different.

----------


## Brookshw

> Normal people usually don't become adventurers. Imagine if someone walked up to you on the street and told you their job was "adventurer", you'd think they were a basket case. Even in D&D worlds, it's not that different.


I don't agree there's a connection between being and "adventurer" and being a rare/menagerie party, the activities being unusual =/= the people performing them have to be, or even are commonly, unusual species.

Also, irl, we call "adventurers" "contractors", "security consultants", "mercenaries", and, maybe, occasionally, "scientist"; I've met many such people, never thought they were basket cases  :Small Tongue:

----------


## MadBear

> I don't agree there's a connection between being and "adventurer" and being a rare/menagerie party, the activities being unusual =/= the people performing them have to be, or even are commonly, unusual species.


I strongly disagree here. To use your IRL "mercenaries" example. If I was in Somalia and encountered a band of mercenaries working for shipping company protecting the local ships from pirates, I bet you'd find that the population of mercenaries was vastly different from the overall Somali population. Absolutely you'd have Somali mercenaries working to stop pirates, but you'd also be more likely to encounter American, French, & Chinese mercenaries. 

How is this any different in a fantasy world? I'd expect the vast majority of harrengon to live in the Fey wild and interact rarely with FR or other worlds. On the other hand, if I was going to encounter a Harrengon, the likelihood that they'd come from a group like an adventurer is vastly more common.

Of course in your home game, you're welcome to discount or ban certain races that you don't find fit your world. AL is the exception, because this isn't just your world. It's a shared world with certain stipulations that you've agreed to prior to running it. With that said, I allow just about any race in my world that, because I find that a fun part of world building, but that isn't something I expect other DM's to do. 

TLDR: Weird races are more likely to be encountered in jobs like adventurers so it makes sense for them to be there in that form.

----------


## Atranen

> I don't think it's a shift at all, or at the very least not a downward one. In 3.5 sanctioned play, nothing could stop me from showing up with a Planar Shepherd either, or Incantatrix, or Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. And those were far, far worse for balance than anything seen in 5e.


Culture shift refers to the role of the DM and the players, not balanced vs nonbalanced options. 




> I'm sympathetic if sanctioned play is the only option you have for in-person gaming, but they can hardly restrict the options in the game at large because a handful of people have less than fortunate circumstances. Be the change you want to see and avoid AL.


It's more than that; as mentioned, I like and enjoy many aspects of organized play; I do not see it as a lesser version or something I only do because I have to. That said, this aspect of it bothers me. 




> TLDR: Weird races are more likely to be encountered in jobs like adventurers so it makes sense for them to be there in that form.


I agree with more likely, but not it makes sense. We live in a globalized society, where I can get to Somalia in a day if I wanted. In fantasy medieval Europe, rapid transit times are not widely accessible and distance is a bigger barrier. One rare species showing up now and then I understand. But a whole party full makes me feel disconnected from the world, as if I'm playing an MMO rather than a d&d game.

----------


## Brookshw

> I strongly disagree here. To use your IRL "mercenaries" example. If I was in Somalia and encountered a band of mercenaries working for shipping company protecting the local ships from pirates, I bet you'd find that the population of mercenaries was vastly different from the overall Somali population. Absolutely you'd have Somali mercenaries working to stop pirates, but you'd also be more likely to encounter American, French, & Chinese mercenaries. 
> 
> How is this any different in a fantasy world? I'd expect the vast majority of harrengon to live in the Fey wild and interact rarely with FR or other worlds. On the other hand, if I was going to encounter a Harrengon, the likelihood that they'd come from a group like an adventurer is vastly more common.
> 
> Of course in your home game, you're welcome to discount or ban certain races that you don't find fit your world. AL is the exception, because this isn't just your world. It's a shared world with certain stipulations that you've agreed to prior to running it. With that said, I allow just about any race in my world that, because I find that a fun part of world building, but that isn't something I expect other DM's to do. 
> 
> TLDR: Weird races are more likely to be encountered in jobs like adventurers so it makes sense for them to be there in that form.


Expecting to find representatives of statistically significant nationalities/species wouldn't be surprising, I agree, however, if you're talking about something that's doesn't actually have a significant presence, then that's another matter. To your counter example, it would be like find someone from Nauru in Somalia (or, frankly, anywhere else) serving as a mercenary. Now, if that species isn't actually rare (switching back to D&D), then I'd agree that it wouldn't be surprising, but that's a different hypothetical. Also, none of that says anything about people being basket cases based on profession.

How is this different from a fantasy world? Good question! The answer is, it depends what the DM decided was present in the fantasy world. If they already decided X isn't present, then, to go back to the earlier example, it would be like finding...I don't know, a troll lets say, serving as a mercenary in somalia, a thing that simply doesn't exist somehow existing, and not in some trick of physics manner.

----------


## Psyren

> I strongly disagree here. To use your IRL "mercenaries" example. If I was in Somalia and encountered a band of mercenaries working for shipping company protecting the local ships from pirates, I bet you'd find that the population of mercenaries was vastly different from the overall Somali population. Absolutely you'd have Somali mercenaries working to stop pirates, but you'd also be more likely to encounter American, French, & Chinese mercenaries. 
> 
> How is this any different in a fantasy world? I'd expect the vast majority of harrengon to live in the Fey wild and interact rarely with FR or other worlds. On the other hand, if I was going to encounter a Harrengon, the likelihood that they'd come from a group like an adventurer is vastly more common.
> 
> Of course in your home game, you're welcome to discount or ban certain races that you don't find fit your world. AL is the exception, because this isn't just your world. It's a shared world with certain stipulations that you've agreed to prior to running it. With that said, I allow just about any race in my world that, because I find that a fun part of world building, but that isn't something I expect other DM's to do. 
> 
> TLDR: Weird races are more likely to be encountered in jobs like adventurers so it makes sense for them to be there in that form.


That.




> Culture shift refers to the role of the DM and the players, not balanced vs nonbalanced options.


I know what you meant. I'm saying that _"I, the DM of an organized play game, might have to deal with disparate party combinations showing up to my table because most official content is assumed to be available"_ is not only _not new_ to 5e, it's _significantly improved_ in 5e.




> It's more than that; as mentioned, I like and enjoy many aspects of organized play; I do not see it as a lesser version or something I only do because I have to. That said, this aspect of it bothers me.


I mean sure, you're certainly allowed to not like the "anything official goes" aspect of AL. But I'd posit that the niche you claim to like, (i.e. "playing in person and being able to introduce the game to new people") is not at all _unique_ to AL. Organizing a non-AL-yet-still-in-person group via a service like MeetUp is not only possible, it's not even particularly hard unless you live in a remote area - and if you do, I'd guess you're not getting that many AL games in either.




> I agree with more likely, but not it makes sense. We live in a globalized society, where I can get to Somalia in a day if I wanted. In fantasy medieval Europe, rapid transit times are not widely accessible and distance is a bigger barrier. One rare species showing up now and then I understand. But a whole party full makes me feel disconnected from the world, as if I'm playing an MMO rather than a d&d game.


I find this reaction odd and, honestly, rather limiting. Are you similarly disconnected when monks show up on the Sword Coast, or barbarians show up in metropolitan areas like Waterdeep? Most D&D settings existed for millennia before the era the campaign is set in, and one thing people are known to do reliably is move around. A rare race does not have to have migrated from halfway across the world right as the campaign starts; their parents, grandparents or even further back can have been the ones who did that.




> Expecting to find representatives of statistically significant nationalities/species wouldn't be surprising, I agree, however, if you're talking about something that's doesn't actually have a significant presence, then that's another matter. To your counter example, it would be like find someone from Nauru in Somalia (or, frankly, anywhere else) serving as a mercenary. Now, if that species isn't actually rare (switching back to D&D), then I'd agree that it wouldn't be surprising, but that's a different hypothetical. Also, none of that says anything about people being basket cases based on profession.
> 
> How is this different from a fantasy world? Good question! *The answer is, it depends what the DM decided was present in the fantasy world.* If they already decided X isn't present, then, to go back to the earlier example, it would be like finding...I don't know, a troll lets say, serving as a mercenary in somalia, a thing that simply doesn't exist somehow existing, and not in some trick of physics manner.


Except a published setting is not entirely up to the DM, at least not the default published state of it. If you as the DM want a world that is entirely under your control, that's a completely valid thing to want, but then professing to run Faerun or some other setting that isn't actually theirs is probably going to result in disconnect when players who don't realize they're heavily altering that default show up. As always, session zero is crucial.

----------


## Atranen

> I know what you meant. I'm saying that _"I, the DM of an organized play game, might have to deal with disparate party combinations showing up to my table because most official content is assumed to be available"_ is not only _not new_ to 5e, it's _significantly improved_ in 5e.


It may be; I didn't do organized play prior to 5e. I know that throughout 5e's lifespan, it has gotten worse. Part of that is unavoidable, and part is not. 




> I mean sure, you're certainly allowed to not like the "anything official goes" aspect of AL. But I'd posit that the niche you claim to like, (i.e. "playing in person and being able to introduce the game to new people") is not at all _unique_ to AL. Organizing a non-AL-yet-still-in-person group via a service like MeetUp is not only possible, it's not even particularly hard unless you live in a remote area - and if you do, I'd guess you're not getting that many AL games in either.


I could do something else, but AL remains the most reliable method. 




> I find this reaction odd and, honestly, rather limiting. Are you similarly disconnected when monks show up on the Sword Coast, or barbarians show up in metropolitan areas like Waterdeep? Most D&D settings existed for millennia before the era the campaign is set in, and one thing people are known to do reliably is move around. A rare race does not have to have migrated from halfway across the world right as the campaign starts; their parents, grandparents or even further back can have been the ones who did that.


In a metropolitan area or where a character has a clear in-universe reason for being there, some rare species are understandable. When _every_ species and character is rare, the world loses a sense of concreteness, of specificity. What is normal for the area, what is to be expected? It makes it more generic; if every place is like every other place, there is nothing unique.

----------


## Envyus

> I wouldn't expect a whole lot more in regards to physical books, both in quality or quantity. Judging by the last few releases and the UA releases for OneD&D the designers are in lazy mode in my opinion..


They clearly are not.

----------


## Psyren

> It may be; I didn't do organized play prior to 5e. I know that throughout 5e's lifespan, it has gotten worse. Part of that is unavoidable, and part is not.


Agree to disagree it is.




> I could do something else, but AL remains the most reliable method.


I can only suggest you try. What you do with that suggestion is up to you.




> In a metropolitan area or where a character has a clear in-universe reason for being there, some rare species are understandable. When _every_ species and character is rare, the world loses a sense of concreteness, of specificity. What is normal for the area, what is to be expected? It makes it more generic; if every place is like every other place, there is nothing unique.


If we were talking about the general populace I would agree, but again, we're talking about adventurers. They're _already_ rare.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

The more and more people argue the point that "what's the big deal? it makes perfect sense! it's always been like this!" the more we see very clearly that there is a shift occurring (and one that has been occurring for some time).

Because we know it _hasn't_ always been like this. There was lore that suggested you wouldn't be bumping into certain creatures commonly in cities, etc. Now everything is cosmopolitan and watered down and video gamey. And we're supposed to let the wool get pulled over our eyes and accept that nothing's changed, we're just doomsaying, and it's the same as it ever was.

There's always been goodly drow hidden in the jungles, and orcs have always been tireless defenders of the realm. This has always been the case, it's YOU that's changin' man!

I agree that it breaks immersion to have the game be chock-full of weird races. And I think that it's disingenuous to pretend that ramped up monetization won't lead to more "weird" stuff just to sell it to players. And it continues to be disingenuous to then pretend there isn't cause for concern in how the game will be monetized and how it will drive design and development going forward.

Doomsaying doesn't have to apply to the game as a whole; it can be negative for some portion of players. And they're allowed to express their concern. It's possible that D&D continues to be successful and the designers make monetization and design choices that maintain D&D's popularity for years to come, but also that some large portion of players stop keeping up and purchasing D&D products. And I don't mean "large portion" like more than your side or more than people that disagree, like win condition. I just mean some substantial number that felt like the game was no longer aimed at what they wanted and they either stick with this edition or something previous (as others have done) or switch to another game entirely. This is normal, it's natural, it happens and already has happened with other editions.

Doesn't mean it doesn't suck for some people and is disappointing. We'll see how it goes. I saw a shooting star last night and I just wished "Please let barbarians and fighters and melee combat get a boost in OneD&D".

----------


## Envyus

{Scrubbed}

----------


## Envyus

> Because we know it _hasn't_ always been like this. There was lore that suggested you wouldn't be bumping into certain creatures commonly in cities, etc. Now everything is cosmopolitan and watered down and video gamey. And we're supposed to let the wool get pulled over our eyes and accept that nothing's changed, we're just doomsaying, and it's the same as it ever was.
> ".


{Scrubbed}

----------


## Psyren

> I agree that it breaks immersion to have the game be chock-full of weird races. And I think that it's disingenuous to pretend that ramped up monetization won't lead to more "weird" stuff just to sell it to players. And it continues to be disingenuous to then pretend there isn't cause for concern in how the game will be monetized and how it will drive design and development going forward.


If all you folks were concerned about was corporate monetization I'd at least understand that. I'm happy to acknowledge WotC's track record for monetization is far from perfect, even ignoring MTG and just focusing on D&D (that crap they tried with MPMM earlier in the year still rankles) - though I can definitively say I've been happy with every purchase _I_ ever made.

But it's when folks like Cheesegear start throwing in dire predictions like "DMs won't be allowed to say no!" and "DMs won't be allowed to kill players!" that I check out.

----------


## Sigreid

> If all you folks were concerned about was corporate monetization I'd at least understand that. I'm happy to acknowledge WotC's track record for monetization is far from perfect, even ignoring MTG and just focusing on D&D (that crap they tried with MPMM earlier in the year still rankles) - though I can definitively say I've been happy with every purchase _I_ ever made.
> 
> But it's when folks like Cheesegear start throwing in dire predictions like "DMs won't be allowed to say no!" and "DMs won't be allowed to kill players!" that I check out.


Meh, it's overstated, but it's certainly possible that new design theory in new books will set expectations in a different place for new players.  This might even lead to conflicts that newly forming tables will have to work out if they're going to play together.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}


Very classy, and compelling...



> {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}


Excellent argument. You have convinced me with your reason and rationale.



> If all you folks were concerned about was corporate monetization I'd at least understand that.


"you folks"

Lol



> I'm happy to acknowledge WotC's track record for monetization is far from perfect


Oh good, so we can stop pretending that all concerns are born out of evil commie hobbyists that want everything for free.



> But it's when folks like Cheesegear start throwing in dire predictions like "DMs won't be allowed to say no!" and "DMs won't be allowed to kill players!" that I check out.


They clarified that they're talking about a cultural shift, and that they are speaking of generations to come, as opposed to you, me, and others engaging in this conversation right now.

Seems to me that D&D was originally much more lethal, and you were expected to regularly make new characters. We have come A LONG WAY from that. You know very well that PCs are harder to kill now than they ever have been, and they're just getting more and more buttons to let them overcome obstacles.

Where this will go I have no idea. But things are certainly trending in a direction. If Cheesegear is bold enough to make a prediction like that, okay. Maybe it's overstated, but I'm not going to pretend like it's coming out of left field or something.

----------


## Atranen

> If we were talking about the general populace I would agree, but again, we're talking about adventurers. They're _already_ rare.


How rare? This is another weakness of the current d&d settings; the books say adventurers and class levels are rare, but don't really enumerate how rare or how special an adventurer (or a species) is. If they gave some guidelines there and made it so, when a Tabaxi and Yuan Ti show up together, you have an idea of _how_ odd that is, I think it would help give the world some of the specificity its lacking.

EDIT: I missed a bit of the recent discussion; but I'll note that originally, character death in AL had some specific mechanisms to raise the character, including the use of gold and penalties associated with raise dead. Recently, the rule was changed, so now you come back to life no questions asked.

----------


## Psyren

> Meh, it's overstated, but it's certainly possible that new design theory in new books will set expectations in a different place for new players.  This might even lead to conflicts that newly forming tables will have to work out if they're going to play together.


It's possible that I'll spontaneously combust next time I roll initiative too.




> They clarified that they're talking about a cultural shift, and that they are speaking of generations to come, as opposed to you, me, and others engaging in this conversation right now.


I know he's talking about the future. It doesn't make it any easier to take seriously.




> How rare?


Rare enough so that the table can run the characters they want to see.




> EDIT: I missed a bit of the recent discussion; but I'll note that originally, character death in AL had some specific mechanisms to raise the character, including the use of gold and penalties associated with raise dead. Recently, the rule was changed, so now you come back to life no questions asked.


At the end of the adventure, no? And no more rewards after the point you died? It's hardly like death has no consequence.

----------


## Atranen

> Rare enough so that the table can run the characters they want to see.


Can you say anything more precise or quantitative? That would add specificity to the world. Saying 'people can play what they want' without specifying how odd certain things are makes it more generic. Whoever logged into to the MMO is fine, because those are the rules the computer has. 




> At the end of the adventure, no? And no more rewards after the point you died? It's hardly like death has no consequence.


But it does show that the trend Cheesegear has identified is correct; death is becoming less meaningful. Perhaps he overly exaggerates; perhaps not. "Come back to life for free in an hour or two" is pretty close to "DMs won't be allowed to kill players", which you dismiss as absurd.

Also you get to level up even if you died.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Can you say anything more precise or quantitative? That would add specificity to the world. Saying 'people can play what they want' without specifying how odd certain things are makes it more generic. Whoever logged into to the MMO is fine, because those are the rules the computer has.


Remember, argument #1 is "Lore belongs in the campaign settings only".

Argument #2 is "Campaign setting lore should change to accommodate all available race and class options".

But also remember, nothing is changing. There were always orcs in Dragonlance, and Dark Sun always had jackrabbit Harengon...

----------


## Cheesegear

> So you're imagining a hypothetical future DMG that says _"Greetings! Your job as Dungeon Master is to be a doormat punchcard machine that does only what the players ask you to do and is never allowed to say no. Accept this."_ Do I have that right?


I'm imagining the following:

Rule 1. Have fun.
Rule 2. Players should be free to express themselves in meaningful ways.
Rule 3. The DM's job is to create adventures, scenarios and challenges that conform to Rules 1 and 2.

I can't really see any reason to disagree with that...Except that I disagree with it completely. But if I had players pointing to such, in a book, by WotC, I'm fairly certain my hands would be tied.




> "A character that doesn't suck" =/= "A character that never fails"


Again, I ask you to look at tables that don't use dice, and why do they do that.




> Same arguments. Same fights. Same eye-rolling lament about where the game is headed and how can it be good if it's not what I'm used to and the kids these days, the kids these days, the kids these days.


And in 4th Ed., we were right.  :Small Tongue: 




> You might think it's insane that a DM would sit down and ask the players whether or not they want their characters to be able to die


I don't.




> It's one thing if you're being prevented from running a game the way you want (I honestly don't know how this would be possible, but let's say it is), but if you can still do what you want but you're upset that other (younger) people are doing it differently?


Yes. Because the problem is with _player turnover_.

*If your table is stable and no-one ever leaves and you've been playing together for 20 years. There. Is. No. Concern. I repeat. You will not have any problems. What I am talking about doesn't concern you.*

I live in a low population, low population _density_ area. The socio-economic opportunities where I live, aren't exactly for everyone. The life cycle of a single player in my group is about 2-3 years before _Life_ rears its head. People go to live with their significant other who lives in the city, people have babies, University is a thing, turbulent economy forces people to change their job, change their hours, they can't play anymore. Whatever... And that's not including _pairs_ of players who both join and leave together and reduce the party by _two_.

Over the course of 5e alone (about a decade), I'm guessing I've had about 30-40 players over two/three tables (I had to stop the third table because _my_ job got in the way). I haven't been with the same group for 25 years. I'm just not that lucky. In the New Year, three weeks from now, I'm set to lose _at least_ another player to their job...And that kinda sucks 'cause I had a plan to finish that table's campaign around Christmas, but due to delays and scheduling I'm gonna have an extra three sessions to do in the New Year, and that player wont get to see the finale (which ties heavily into that specific player's backstory).

I have to recruit for my games semi-regularly...Annually? And the players I get, are more or less the only players I'm _gonna_ get. But, I do get players, and that keeps the tables rolling dice.
Interestingly enough, more than a couple of recruits over the course of the last few years have come to my table because Adventurer's League at the game store is a dumpster fire where nothing gets done and there's a lot of yelling - allegedly. When I did AL at the local store I didn't have that experience - but that was many years ago, and now that I have my own tables I don't need AL. 

I have noticed that as 5e has progressed, the newer players - and _certainly_ the younger players - have different expectations of what D&D, _is_ and/or should be (Maybe that's why my experience of AL from many years ago is different to someone's experience of AL, last year). Now, I'm fairly confident as to a few reasons for why that may be the case. But, suffice to say that it _is_ the case, and that's why I believe the direction of the game, is going where it's going. Do I kick new and/or young players from my table? **** no. I'm an adult. I know what a social contract is. If you are under the assumption that that's what I'm doing - you're wrong.

I'm fairly unlikely to have the same group(s) I have, in 2024 when 1DD comes out. I'm gonna have players that are going to come into my tables when 1DD is released (New Edition, New Players!), who are going to expect me to run the game under that edition's philosophy - whatever it happens to be - I just have to hope it's a design philosophy that I like (i.e; Not 4th Ed.).

So once more I repeat. If you feel that my point doesn't apply to you, because WotC aren't going to come to your table and snatch the dice out of your hands...Dur. You do you. Keep playing with your group. If you've been friends for 10 years, it doesn't _really_ matter what game you play, nor what edition you play, and it probably doesn't even matter what your homebrew is like, because you've been friends and playing together for 10 years and you trust each other. It's fine.

If your group is stable. With very low turnover rate, and everyone has been playing together a long time and everyone is happy with the style of their DM. There's no problem.
There.
Is.
No.
Problem.
When you have a stable table.

Having a stable table is the most wonderful thing in the world and I envy you - I truly do.




> There's a lot of good stuff said already; I think Cheesegear's point is solid, and probably most obvious in AL games, which I take part in regularly.


I saw your post and bringing up AL reminded me of some of the things my players have said. Now maybe I think that some of the more disruptive players that I've had over the last few years have _come from_ AL, and that's why they have several bad habits that I have to...Break, for lack of a better word.




> In that scenario, there's no opportunity for a discussion, the books are the law, and the law says you can play a Twilight Cleric if you want.


AL has a problem where if someone brings something overpowered, the DM kind of just has to allow it, and that's a problem because their scenarios are - more or less - fixed and there's nothing they can do.

However, in my earlier example...I don't _like_ Aaracokra. But sure I'll allow it. Just let me rewrite and change a whole bunch of **** so that Aaracokra aren't going to be as powerful as they should be. I can do that. I'm the DM.
I can't tell him that he can't play an Aaracokra. It's in the book. It's designed to be used. It's there. Okay. I don't want to fight you, and I certainly don't want you leaving the table. Sure. I don't like it. But I'll grudgingly...Accept...It.
Conversely, he can't tell _me_ that no actually, I can't run storms and hurricanes and make a Fly speed near-useless whenever I feel like it. If you want it to change, start levelling up and cast _Control Weather_.




> As new races and subclasses etc. have come out, there's been a real loss of thematic cohesion in a lot of these games. I go in now, and there's Yuan-Ti and Tabaxi running around parts of the Forgotten Realms they have no business being.


Q. F. T.
'How did this party form, again?'




> That could just be my sample, but I suspect it's more wide-ranging.


Someone finally gets it.
I know I'm not alone. I know I'm not.

I know DMs who know what it's like are out there... It turns out those DMs are DMing for AL.  :Small Amused: 




> Normal people usually don't become adventurers. Imagine if someone walked up to you on the street and told you their job was "adventurer", you'd think they were a basket case. Even in D&D worlds, it's not that different.


When I was High School, police and defense personnel came to my high school telling people they were and/or could be *ahem*..."Adventurers."

Also, I live in Australia - I know plenty of Adventurers. One of my best friends' job title is 'Ranger'...He played D&D for a while - as a Druid, not a Ranger - until well, being a Ranger for the outback would take him away for 10 days at a stretch and his schedule was insane...Anyway...




> Also, irl, we call "adventurers" "contractors", "security consultants", "mercenaries", and, maybe, occasionally, "scientist"; I've met many such people, never thought they were basket cases


...That's exactly what I was thinking.  :Small Amused: 




> Also I will say this. Cheesegear has no point, nor even the basis of one.


You can think that if you want. I don't mind.

Different players have different expectations of the game.
I think I now understand that some tables don't _have_ different players.

I have a feeling that most longtime D&D players, are longtime D&D players...With the same group where there's no problem, and there's never _been_ any problems.

----------


## Brookshw

> Except a published setting is not entirely up to the DM, at least not the default published state of it. If you as the DM want a world that is entirely under your control, that's a completely valid thing to want, but then professing to run Faerun or some other setting that isn't actually theirs is probably going to result in disconnect when players who don't realize they're heavily altering that default show up. As always, session zero is crucial.


Yes and no, right? Published setting generally provide a default, but canonically don't reflect every possible race; how could they when they aren't released in tandem, right? While later publications which introduce new races might suggest, "well, you can slot them in like this", it's a very different thing from an existing presence. If you're changing significant races it's definitely worth addressing in session zero (and agreed on it's importance), but I don't see such changes really making it some other setting, take tinker gnomes out of DL, does it really change much? Personally, no, it's still DL, overwhelmingly the major elements are still there, but I leave it to the individual to weigh their ontological preference on what makes a setting "that setting".

----------


## Psyren

> Can you say anything more precise or quantitative?


Uh, why? It's supposed to be subjective, that's the whole point.




> But it does show that the trend Cheesegear has identified is correct; death is becoming less meaningful.


Right, because _losing money_ is so meaningful in 5e...




> I'm imagining the following:
> 
> Rule 1. Have fun.
> Rule 2. Players should be free to express themselves in meaningful ways.
> Rule 3. The DM's job is to create adventures, scenarios and challenges that conform to Rules 1 and 2.
> 
> I can't really see any reason to disagree with that...Except that I disagree with it completely. But if I had players pointing to such, in a book, by WotC, I'm fairly certain my hands would be tied.


The... the books say these things right now  :Small Confused: 




> Again, I ask you to look at tables that don't use dice, and why do they do that.


What? "Again?" You haven't mentioned diceless tables until now  :Small Confused: 




> Having a stable table is the most wonderful thing in the world and I envy you - I truly do.


_Most_ groups do.
(And you can't seriously expect them to design their game around _unstable_ ones...)

----------


## Envyus

> I'm imagining the following:
> 
> Rule 1. Have fun.
> Rule 2. Players should be free to express themselves in meaningful ways.
> Rule 3. The DM's job is to create adventures, scenarios and challenges that conform to Rules 1 and 2.
> 
> I can't really see any reason to disagree with that...Except that I disagree with it completely. But if I had players pointing to such, in a book, by WotC, I'm fairly certain my hands would be tied.


So the books basically say that already, but they also say the DM is a player too and things should be fun for them, as well as that the DM is the final arbiter on any topic in the game including rules and house rules.

----------


## Envyus

> Different players have different expectations of the game.
> I think I now understand that some tables don't _have_ different players.
> 
> I have a feeling that most longtime D&D players, are longtime D&D players...With the same group where there's no problem, and there's never _been_ any problems.


This is not true in my case at least. Many problems, many different players, some veteran, some brand new. 

My current group is on hiatus due to problems outside the game.

I view myself as a pretty lenient DM and allow most things. Though characters that can freely fly from level 1 are not one of them.

----------


## Telesphoros

> They clearly are not.


Clearly your opinion and you're entitled to it. Mine is the designers are being lazy as of late.  

Delete, simplify things until they don't make sense, and release less crunch and material per product are their design methods of choice from where I'm sitting.

----------


## Atranen

> Uh, why? It's supposed to be subjective, that's the whole point.


The point of buying a book with lore is *so that you don't have to make lore up.* This goes double for AL games, which take place in a shared universe. If every DM can make up whatever they want, there is no consistency to the world.




> Right, because _losing money_ is so meaningful in 5e...


So your argument here is 'death has never been meaningful in AL'? And you simultaneously think it is absurd to say 'DMs won't be allowed to kill players'?




> Remember, argument #1 is "Lore belongs in the campaign settings only".
> 
> Argument #2 is "Campaign setting lore should change to accommodate all available race and class options".
> 
> But also remember, nothing is changing. There were always orcs in Dragonlance, and Dark Sun always had jackrabbit Harengon...


This captures the dynamics precisely. No specificity is allowed; it could be a problem. The DM can do what they want, as long as the setting is the same cosmopolitan mush as every other setting.

----------


## prototype00

On the subject of monetization, I know if they started releasing a monthly dungeon magazine with an AL legal adventure path in it, Id be all over a subscription.

I mean, hardcover books are nice for the shelf and all, but if you want steady cash from me, start cranking those monthly connected modules out WoTC. (Spent so much money on that stuff when Paizo was writing for Wizards)

----------


## Psyren

> The point of buying a book with lore is *so that you don't have to make lore up.* This goes double for AL games, which take place in a shared universe. If every DM can make up whatever they want, there is no consistency to the world.


FR is a kitchen-sink setting by design, and that's where most AL games are set, as is Eberron. Similarly, Ravenloft's whole deal is grabbing randoms from any other world. If that isn't what you want, then choosing to play AL is counterproductive.




> So your argument here is 'death has never been meaningful in AL'? And you simultaneously think it is absurd to say 'DMs won't be allowed to kill players'?


What I said was that if AL is your only avenue of playing D&D, I sympathize with that, but ultimately that is neither WotC's problem nor mine to solve.

----------


## Cheesegear

> The... the books say these things right now


Could've fooled me. I've had a couple of people in this very thread say that they'd kick players for doing something the DM doesn't want them to do.




> _Most_ groups do.
> (And you can't seriously expect them to design their game around _unstable_ ones...)


Well, actually, yes. Adventurer's League has been invoked. Which I forgot about.

It's definitely part of D&D, and it's definitely unstable. For as much as people don't seem to like it, it definitely still exists and people still show up. Organised Play is real, and I think it's real-er than most people who play homebrew in their own home, believe.

If they are serious about monetising D&DBeyond - and to a lesser extent, the VTTs that connect to it (e.g; Roll 20) - that's how you go about doing it. Online play, with matchmaking and drop-in, drop-out. Again, I'm not _totally_ sure how the roleplaying goes in online play, especially amongst random players thrown together. But I'm sure it's possible if you encourage the community in that direction. You effectively want to have online Adventurer's League. _That's_ the real direction I would probably be looking into if I was WotC. Recurrent monitisisation of the D&DB userbase. If it takes off, you'd ideally want to have better visualisations.

At that point you're _so close_ to an actual video game. Like a less good MMORPG.

Then what you do, is you build the ruleset around virtual tabletops, then port it to IRL.

Y'know. Like how you make games for mobile devices; Then port it to PC with no hotkeys and no enhanced functionality that a mouse-and-keyboard provides.
(Seriously, why is _This War of Mine_...The way it is? It's such a good game but the UI is agonising.)

----------


## Atranen

> FR is a kitchen-sink setting by design, and that's where most AL games are set, as is Eberron. Similarly, Ravenloft's whole deal is grabbing randoms from any other world. If that isn't what you want, then choosing to play AL is counterproductive.


How kitchen sink? What *specifically* exists in what part of the setting and what is odd in what parts of the setting?

If you can't answer this with some precision, you have no business publishing a campaign setting. 




> What I said was that if AL is your only avenue of playing D&D, I sympathize with that, but ultimately that is neither WotC's problem nor mine to solve.


I don't think this statement is related to my point. You said previously:




> But it's when folks like Cheesegear start throwing in dire predictions like "DMs won't be allowed to say no!" and "DMs won't be allowed to kill players!" that I check out.


But now you imply 'money is not really an issue for AL so character death has never really had consequences'. 

Isn't 'death doesn't have consequences' rather similar to 'DMs won't be allowed to kill players'?

----------


## Psyren

> How kitchen sink? What *specifically* exists in what part of the setting and what is odd in what parts of the setting?


What is "odd in parts of the setting" is wholly irrelevant for adventurers; they can plausibly show up anywhere. That's, you know, _what an adventure is._




> I don't think this statement is related to my point. You said previously:
> 
> 
> 
> But now you imply 'money is not really an issue for AL so character death has never really had consequences'. 
> 
> Isn't 'death doesn't have consequences' rather similar to 'DMs won't be allowed to kill players'?


_You_ said "death is becoming less meaningful." Going from a gold deduction to nothing at all is barely a blip. The important part, having to sit out the session and its rewards, remains intact.

----------


## Atranen

> What is "odd in parts of the setting" is wholly irrelevant for adventurers; they can plausibly show up anywhere. That's, you know, _what an adventure is._


A French person showing up for an adventure in Argentina is meaningfully different than a Argentinan person showing up for an adventure in Argentina. The extent to which this matters depends on what year it is; if it is 1900 it will be different than 2000. And both of these differ from, say 300, where the statement is nonsensical. 

The setting refuses to tell us what year we're in.  




> _You_ said "death is becoming less meaningful." Going from a gold deduction to nothing at all is barely a blip. The important part, having to sit out the session and its rewards, remains intact.


Yes, in agreeing with Cheesegear's point that at some point death would become meaningless. If you want to dispute that and say death was *never* meaningful, fine; I will concede that point, as the important one still stands--death does not have real consequences. 

Do you think coming back to life for free and gaining a level is so different from "DMs won't be allowed to kill players"; that this is such a major distinction that you need to 'check out' as soon as someone suggests it?

----------


## Psyren

> A French person showing up for an adventure in Argentina is meaningfully different than a Argentinan person showing up for an adventure in Argentina. The extent to which this matters depends on what year it is; if it is 1900 it will be different than 2000. And both of these differ from, say 300, where the statement is nonsensical. 
> 
> The setting refuses to tell us what year we're in.


Repeating the bad analogy multiple ways does not stop it from being bad. D&D adventurers are not French people in Argentina, regardless of the year. 




> Yes, in agreeing with Cheesegear's point that at some point death would become meaningless. If you want to dispute that and say death was *never* meaningful, fine; I will concede that point, as the important one still stands--death does not have real consequences.
> 
> Do you think coming back to life for free and gaining a level is so different from "DMs won't be allowed to kill players"; that this is such a major distinction that you need to 'check out' as soon as someone suggests it?


So what exactly are you proposing for AL? Should the coordinator rip your character sheet up in front of you? Throw you bodily out of the store?  "Sit out the session" is all the consequence that is needed for that format.

----------


## Atranen

> Repeating the bad analogy multiple ways does not stop it from being bad. D&D adventurers are not French people in Argentina, regardless of the year.


What is bad about the analogy?




> So what exactly are you proposing for AL? Should the coordinator rip your character sheet up in front of you? Throw you bodily out of the store?  "Sit out the session" is all the consequence that is needed for that format.


At the moment, I am simply agreeing with Cheesegear that 'death has no consequences' is an accurate statement, at least in the AL format supported by WOTC.

----------


## Psyren

> What is bad about the analogy?


An PC is not merely "a {nationality} person." They are heroes, special forces, contractors, and other atypical labels that justify them appearing in incongruous places that laypeople wouldn't. The probabilities of normality don't apply to them by definition.




> At the moment, I am simply agreeing with Cheesegear that 'death has no consequences' is an accurate statement, at least in the AL format supported by WOTC.


Sitting out the session is a consequence, so we'll have to agree to disagree as usual.

----------


## Atranen

> An PC is not merely "a {nationality} person." They are heroes, special forces, contractors, and other atypical labels that justify them appearing in incongruous places that laypeople wouldn't. The probabilities of normality don't apply to them by definition.


I'm not asking them to be normal -- I'm asking you to define how abnormal they are. A French special forces person in Argentina in 1900 is different than one in 2000 is different than one in 300. 




> Sitting out the session is a consequence, so we'll have to agree to disagree as usual.


Ok.

----------


## Psyren

> I'm not asking them to be normal -- I'm asking you to define how abnormal they are. A French special forces person in Argentina in 1900 is different than one in 2000 is different than one in 300.


Abnormal enough to _be there._ Which they could be.

----------


## Leon

It could work well or it could burn them harder than 4e did if mismanaged and i don't expect it to be well managed at all.

----------


## Brookshw

> I'm not asking them to be normal -- I'm asking you to define how abnormal they are. A French special forces person in Argentina in 1900 is different than one in 2000 is different than one in 300.


Doesn't matter, it misses the point; the argument is conflating that because profession [X] is rare, and species [Y] is rare, that if [X] shows up then [Y] also does. That adventurers may be in Chult says nothing about whether those adventurers are human, elf, dwarf, or any other species. Sure, you can, within certain bounds (e.g., if they exist, and are available to players), create scenarios that justify about anything being in a location, but that's a narrative function and a different argument tangent.

----------


## Segev

> But it's when folks like Cheesegear start throwing in dire predictions like "DMs won't be allowed to say no!" and "DMs won't be allowed to kill players!" that I check out.


I'm pretty sure the laws of most of the nations in which D&D is frequently played have something to say about DMs being allowed to kill players.  :Small Wink: 

More seriously, I agree, those are a bit hyperbolic. Even the "death isn't meaningful" or "there's no tension because players don't fear their PCs will die" gripes are flawed, and have been since at least 3e, possibly throughout significant portions of 2e. We're a long, long way from the "rogue-like" nature of very old D&D when bringing a stack of stat pages to a game was expected because death was around every corner and your goal was to see how far you could get and how much loot you could haul before having to start over from level 1.

And there are much better ways to create tension than just threatening to kill PCs. It's all about the PCs' goals and motives, both long-term and in the immediate scene. There's not narrative tension when the party is negotiating with the king for permission to raise a small army to attack the lich's keep because the king is going to execute them for asking if they don't persuade him. There's tension because if they don't convince the king, they'll need to come up with a different plan, or raise the army in secret, or...something other than what they currently want. The same should be true even of most combats. The tension of threat-of-death should be there, but not as a major thing. That's an extreme failure state, not the only failure state. The acolyte of Tiamat escaping with the Dragon Orb she and the PCs are fighting over is a win state for her and a lose state for the PCs, even if the acolyte kills nobody.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Even if the plurality of players do want only good things to happen, to never fail at anything, to never take damage, to have infinite options and no restrictions, _you're still allowed to run your game however you like_. And, like every DM everywhere, since the dawn of Gygax, you'll attract and retain players at a rate determined by the intersection of your ability and their options.


 Part of my session zero includes: the character may die, it's part of the game, and you get to create a new one if that happens.  



> I'd be happy to introduce you to a couple of 45 year old guys I know who are still upset about THAC0.


 Mad that it's gone, or mad that it even happened?  :Small Confused: 



> ... it's one of those things that feels so simple and basic and obvious that it feels insane to discuss it. Until you start discussing it with different kinds of people. And you find that everyone has a different take on it that feels so basic and simple and obvious to them that they _also_ can't believe we're discussing it.   Until they do.


 I guess it depends on who you play with. If you play with people you already know, it is a different conversation that with people you have just met.   



> Because _they are_ talking to different people - lots, and lots, and lots of different people. And pulling data through avenues and across playgroups we don't even know exist.


 I think that they are listening to the sounds of their own voices, mostly.


> Agreed. That's what I'm seeing--not explicit words, but definitely a developer culture thing. An expectation that the default state will be "anything goes" and that blocking things is expected to be both rare and for very particular reasons. Especially in published settings.


 And yet, in both Xanathar's and Tasha's, it is explicitly stated that "these are optional rules" - I'll check my Fizban's and see if that is there in the early pages. 



> There were always orcs in Dragonlance, and Dark Sun always had jackrabbit Harengon...


 Winston Smith agrees. 



> Mine is the designers are being lazy as of late.


 Yes. "Unpolished" is a criticism I've levied on a few of their products.  With that said, I have now used five of the Candlekeep adventures (which I've had to mod a bit to fit into our campaign, since I don't do FR) with reasonable results.    


> I know if they started releasing a monthly dungeon magazine with an AL legal adventure path in it, Id be all over a subscription.


 My concern would be the median quality of each adventure. When Dungeon Magazine was an ongoing pub, there was some very good stuff in there, and some tripe.

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> Yes. "Unpolished" is a criticism I've levied on a few of their products. With that said, I have now used five of the Candlekeep adventures (which I've had to mod a bit to fit into our campaign, since I don't do FR) with reasonable results.


Not sure if it's just that our bars are different, but if I run my own campaign or adventure, and the results are "reasonable", that means I need to work on whatever aspects prevented "great" results.  If I'm paying money for a campaign or adventure designed by the people who created the game, I expect that it'll deliver, as a baseline, at least better than my own content.

----------


## Atranen

> Abnormal enough to _be there._ Which they could be.


But how abnormal is that? Are there tabaxi and Yuan Ti on every street? Have the people in this town ever seen those species before? Have they only heard of them from rumors? How does that affect their reaction? 

What you suggest is an appropriate statement to get a game moving without thinking too much about it, but it's not conducive to verisimilitude or a 'lived-in' world; it's more like an MMO where a new premium species was just released so people get to play it, regardless of how it interacts with the lore.

----------


## MadBear

I feel like this entire conversation would benefit from splitting the conversation into: 

1. D&D in general. 

2. AL specifically. 

There's no getting around the fact that AL is a weird piece of D&D that exists. By its design it has to be very inclusive because you're asking a DM and players who might not have ever met, to play together at a shared table. As a result a lot of the expectations are not set by the DM or players, but instead by WOTC, as that's the only real way to make it universally work. That's very very different from normal. As such conflating AL with normal D&D or visa versa is likely to only produce unproductive conversation in general. 

As far as "death has no meaningful consequences", I guess with D&D Beyond existing, we could give the DM's in adventure league the ability to delete characters that die in their games from the players database. That has potentially devastating and ridiculous consequences, but I guess if we want to make sure that an AL characters death has meaning we could do that. Outside of AL, I don't really see the issue as long as the DM and players have gone over the games norms/expectations. I will say that my group tends to use the rules that Critical Role uses for bringing dead players back.

----------


## Psyren

> But how abnormal is that? Are there tabaxi and Yuan Ti on every street? Have the people in this town ever seen those species before? Have they only heard of them from rumors? How does that affect their reaction?


Again, the point is that each DM gets to decide these things based on what best keeps the game moving. For example, having the noble contact that wants to hire the party for a job faint or have a heart attack every time she looks at the tabaxi party member is probably going to quickly bog down the game and be disruptive to the table's fun, so don't do that. And from what I can tell, having no farmer or street beggar even remark on that party member's odd appearance is going to impact your fun, so don't do that either. There's a lot of room in between those extremes, so figure it out. If everyone is having fun, you're doing it right, and if they're not, make adjustments; it's not hard. 




> What you suggest is an appropriate statement to get a game moving without thinking too much about it, but it's not conducive to verisimilitude or a 'lived-in' world; it's more like an MMO where a new premium species was just released so people get to play it, regardless of how it interacts with the lore.


Okay, I keep seeing the "MMO" pejorative thrown around and it makes no sense to me. have you people actually played one? When MMOs add new races, they usually have a big intro scenario explaining where that race came from and why people haven't seen them around before, but even then, the rank and file inhabitants of those worlds usually have *way* bigger problems than gawking at the panda people who showed up on a boat that morning. And AL worlds like Forgotten Realms, Eberron and Ravenloft are no different in that regard than somewhere like Azeroth, Eorzea, or Tyria. 

You can have citizens react with surprise, and even distrust, at seeing someone of an unfamiliar species. But if your "verisimilitude" hinges on farmers diving for pitchforks the moment they glimpse something strange, then running AL is probably not for you. By your own admission you have other options to play in-person games, so problem solved.

----------


## Atranen

> Again, the point is that each DM gets to decide these things based on what best keeps the game moving. For example, having the noble contact that wants to hire the party for a job faint or have a heart attack every time she looks at the tabaxi party member is probably going to quickly bog down the game and be disruptive to the table's fun, so don't do that. And from what I can tell, having no farmer or street beggar even remark on that party member's odd appearance is going to impact your fun, so don't do that either. There's a lot of room in between those extremes, so figure it out. If everyone is having fun, you're doing it right, and if they're not, make adjustments; it's not hard.


This does nothing to address the problem that what exists in the world is not clearly specified. The space between those extremes that a rare species occupies will depend on the specifics of the world. Those are not provided. 




> Okay, I keep seeing the "MMO" pejorative thrown around and it makes no sense to me. have you people actually played one?


Yes. MMOs are fine, but they lack verisimilitude that a tabletop game can have. That's the sense in which I use it; a game that has sacrificed the feeling of realism, of groundedness, for some other goal. 




> When MMOs add new races, they usually have a big intro scenario explaining where that race came from and why people haven't seen them around before, but even then, the rank and file inhabitants of those worlds usually have *way* bigger problems than gawking at the panda people who showed up on a boat that morning. And AL worlds like Forgotten Realms, Eberron and Ravenloft are no different in that regard than somewhere like Azeroth, Eorzea, or Tyria.


Given the reputation of, say, Yuan Ti in the FR, you might expect one showing up to be a sign of bigger problems. Or not. It's not clear. 




> You can have citizens react with surprise, and even distrust, at seeing someone of an unfamiliar species. But if your "verisimilitude" hinges on farmers diving for pitchforks the moment they glimpse something strange, then running AL is probably not for you. By your own admission you have other options to play in-person games, so problem solved.


I never said anything of the sort.

----------


## Psyren

> This does nothing to address the problem that what exists in the world is not clearly specified.


As I said, the extent of the rare is intentionally left up to each GM. Feature, not bug.




> Yes. MMOs are fine, but they lack verisimilitude that a tabletop game can have. That's the sense in which I use it; a game that has sacrificed the feeling of realism, of groundedness, for some other goal.


The MMOs I've played feel plenty grounded to me. Their settings aren't perfect, but then, I haven't encountered one that was.




> Given the reputation of, say, Yuan Ti in the FR, you might expect one showing up to be a sign of bigger problems. Or not. It's not clear.


Is it fun for both you and your players to have all NPCs to react that way upon seeing one? If so, do it; if not, don't.

----------


## Atranen

> As I said, the extent of the rare is intentionally left up to each GM. Feature, not bug.


"Welcome to the forgotten realms campaign setting! What exists in this area of the world? Ehh...I'm just a book, not the DM. Why don't you decide?"

This is a failure of setting design. It's perfectly acceptable for the book to say something and then add "the DM may change facets of the world at their discretion." To instead say "hey, this is close to a blank slate, fill in what you want" is insulting to the DM who purchased it. 

It also contributes to the problem of generic ville. A player wants a rare species, and they can say "well, the setting can be whatever you want, right?"  




> Is it fun for both you and your players to have all NPCs to react that way upon seeing one? If so, do it; if not, don't.


The fact that you think this is an accurate rendition of what I want shows you have not understood my point. 

What I am asking for: A clear set of rules, maybe in a table, that roughly delineate what kinds of characters (species and class and level) can be found in a certain part of the world. Then, additional rules/incentives for playing characters that align with that concrete picture. 

WOTC is not providing this and is instead letting people play whatever species they want with no need to try to integerate them into the narrative. This results in a generic, non-specific setting that feels like mush.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> "Welcome to the forgotten realms campaign setting! What exists in this area of the world? Ehh...I'm just a book, not the DM. Why don't you decide?"
> 
> This is a failure of setting design. It's perfectly acceptable for the book to say something and then add "the DM may change facets of the world at their discretion." To instead say "hey, this is close to a blank slate, fill in what you want" is insulting to the DM who purchased it. 
> 
> It also contributes to the problem of generic ville. A player wants a rare species, and they can say "well, the setting can be whatever you want, right?"  
> 
> 
> 
> The fact that you think this is an accurate rendition of what I want shows you have not understood my point. 
> ...


I agree with this. Especially that last paragraph. They're trying to have their cake ("Lots of diversity! Bunches of different settings!") and eat it to ("but settings don't really matter and anyone can run anything and DMs should bend over for that" + "we don't want to tell you what to do, even in our own settings").

If info is to be done at setting level, _it needs to be done at setting level_. Which means actually making those hard decisions and publishing them. If it's not done at setting level, it needs to be done globally. Because that info is necessary.

----------


## Psyren

> "Welcome to the forgotten realms campaign setting! What exists in this area of the world? Ehh...I'm just a book, not the DM. Why don't you decide?"
> ...
> What I am asking for: A clear set of rules, maybe in a table, that roughly delineate what kinds of characters (species and class and level) can be found in a certain part of the world. Then, additional rules/incentives for playing characters that align with that concrete picture.


They do tell you what's in each area. Evermeet has elves, Menzoberranzan has Drow, Damara has Dwarves , Tymanther has Dragonborn etc. That's not the same as saying what _isn't_ in each area, and that's what you actually want. The game is intentionally quiet on that front to give you the freedom to decide. If you think it's completely impossible for a Dragonborn adventurer to ever arrive on Evermeet for any reason, that's totally fine, but WotC isn't going to enforce that from on high.




> WOTC is not providing this and is instead letting people play whatever species they want with no need to try to integerate them into the narrative. This results in a generic, non-specific setting that feels like mush.


_Your_ narrative and its contents are not WotC's job.

----------


## Segev

> _Your_ narrative and its contents are not WotC's job.


It is if they're trying to sell me a setting book, a module, or a monster manual.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> It is if they're trying to sell me a setting book, a module, or a monster manual.


Exactly. *Especially* a setting book or module. That's their entire, 100% job there. To set the parameters of the setting and module. Those sorts of things are a big part of the work to create a setting. Cheaping out and saying "well, we don't care" is saying "yeah, we're not actually doing our job." It's like if they said "to make an attack, roll some dice and compare it to any number you want. It doesn't matter what dice or what number. Just figure out if it hits however you want and how much damage it does. We're not going to actually tell you that, because it's your game."

----------


## Psyren

> It is if they're trying to sell me a setting book, a module, or a monster manual.


None of those have or will ever have answers to everything you need to make a narrative. Some of it will always fall on the DM to determine. That's the whole reason we're playing tabletop and not a video game.

To be clear, I'm fine with more campaign settings, and even more detail. But what I see people clamoring for here is _exclusion_, i.e. "adventurers of this species don't make sense in this setting/location, keep them out", and I'll never get behind that. If you want to ban a species from your table or from a given campaign, go ahead and ban it, but don't call on WotC to ban it for you.

----------


## Segev

> None of those have or will ever have answers to everything you need to make a narrative. Some of it will always fall on the DM to determine. That's the whole reason we're playing tabletop and not a video game.
> 
> To be clear, I'm fine with more campaign settings, and even more detail. But what I see people clamoring for here is _exclusion_, i.e. "adventurers of this species don't make sense in this setting/location, keep them out", and I'll never get behind that. If you want to ban a species from your table or from a given campaign, go ahead and ban it, but don't call on WotC to ban it for you.


Frankly, I am more concerned that the lore about what is IN the settings will continue to be watered down to "it's this, maybe, unless it's this other thing, and some things aren't like that at all, and we won't be specific about any of it because that stifles creativity or whatever: do whatever you want, DM! Lack of lore is a feature, not a bug!"

----------


## MadBear

Is that really something we as a community want? I'm all for DM's tailoring their world to their liking. Heck, I have a friend whose entire world is Dwarves and Elves. Those are your only options. You can't play any other race because that's not what's in the world he created. He's well within his right to say "sorry, you can play dwarves and elves and that's it". 

However, if I was going to DM his world and a player really wanted to play a Human, I'd ask them first why. If it was just because of mechanical benefit, I'd probably nix it. If however a player wanted to play "I'm a human who got pushed through a Gate into this world, and now I'm the only human", that would be something I might allow, as it'd be a fun idea to play with. It'd be weird if after the fact, my friend came up and said "No! you can only have dwarves and elves here"!

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> . If however a player wanted to play "I'm a human who got pushed through a Gate into this world, and now I'm the only human", that would be something I might allow, as it'd be a fun idea to play with. It'd be weird if after the fact, my friend came up and said "No! you can only have dwarves and elves here"!


To me, that's a huge red flag that the player wants to be a special snowflake. It has protagonist syndrome written all over it. "I know you said that there were only elves and dwarves, but I want to break the rules because I'm special." I'd be much more willing to allow "I use the mechanics of a human but am a dwarf or elf, just a weird one" than that. In part, because that human now has no connection to the world. He knows nothing, is part of nothing, has no reason to be there, his background is now meaningless, etc.

Setting invariants (what races exist, how they interact, the existence or non-existence of planar portals that just dump random people from other random worlds there, among other things) are, to me, inviolate. Whether mine or others. They're a fundamental part of what makes the setting different than others. And make up a large chunk of my enjoyment of the game. "Intruder" characters (including "I'm <other fiction character> with the serial numbers filed off") make me exceedingly unhappy because they shatter any ability I have to believe in the world. It reduces the world to the thickness and depth of cardboard.

----------


## Atranen

> They do tell you what's in each area. Evermeet has elves, Menzoberranzan has Drow, Damara has Dwarves , Tymanther has Dragonborn etc. That's not the same as saying what _isn't_ in each area, and that's what you actually want. The game is intentionally quiet on that front to give you the freedom to decide. If you think it's completely impossible for a Dragonborn adventurer to ever arrive on Evermeet for any reason, that's totally fine, but WotC isn't going to enforce that from on high.





> None of those have or will ever have answers to everything you need to make a narrative. Some of it will always fall on the DM to determine. That's the whole reason we're playing tabletop and not a video game.
> 
> To be clear, I'm fine with more campaign settings, and even more detail. But what I see people clamoring for here is _exclusion_, i.e. "adventurers of this species don't make sense in this setting/location, keep them out", and I'll never get behind that. If you want to ban a species from your table or from a given campaign, go ahead and ban it, but don't call on WotC to ban it for you.


I'm not asking them to provide everything, but I am asking them to provide more. I am not demanding outright exclusion of any species. I am asking for clarification as to _how unusual_ certain species are in different locations. If you, a dragonborn, show up at Evermeet, will anyone have any idea what that is? Where you come from? What your abilities and history is? All of this information is necessary to make the world feel lived in.




> _Your_ narrative and its contents are not WotC's job.





> It is if they're trying to sell me a setting book, a module, or a monster manual.





> Exactly. *Especially* a setting book or module. That's their entire, 100% job there. To set the parameters of the setting and module. Those sorts of things are a big part of the work to create a setting. Cheaping out and saying "well, we don't care" is saying "yeah, we're not actually doing our job." It's like if they said "to make an attack, roll some dice and compare it to any number you want. It doesn't matter what dice or what number. Just figure out if it hits however you want and how much damage it does. We're not going to actually tell you that, because it's your game."


Amplifying both of these responses because they get it right. If I want to make up my own setting, I can do that. If I am buying a product, I expect them to fill in basic details about the world. 

And to bring it back to AL--that is emphatically not my world, and DMs are in fact forbidden from rewriting big chunks of the setting to fit their needs. It is WOTCs world. 

This doesn't have to mean outright exclusion. What I am asking for is for unusual species to be clearly noted as such, and for this to have some narrative impact.  Here's a short version that might work for AL:

AL SEASON X GUIDELINES: 

Season X of AL takes place along the Sword Coast Region. Common species include humans, dwarves, orcs, half-orcs, elves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves.

Species not on this list are playable in season X, but it is unusual to see them in the region. Your character will be distinctive and have a difficult time blending in. Explain in your backstory how your character ended up on the sword coast: were they part of a community of that species that migrated to the area? Are they on a mission for their homeland? Are they an exile? 

Or for an intro to an adventure for a home campaign: 

Species include humans, dwarves, orcs, half-orcs, elves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves. Other species may be present at the discretion of the DM.

This language makes it clear that the setting has expectations and the DM has the right to enforce those expectations.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> This doesn't have to mean outright exclusion. What I am asking for is for unusual species to be clearly noted as such, and for this to have some narrative impact.  Here's a short version that might work for AL:
> 
> AL SEASON X GUIDELINES: 
> 
> Season X of AL takes place along the Sword Coast Region. Common species include humans, dwarves, orcs, half-orcs, elves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves.
> 
> Species not on this list are playable in season X, but it is unusual to see them in the region. Your character will be distinctive and have a difficult time blending in. Explain in your backstory how your character ended up on the sword coast: were they part of a community of that species that migrated to the area? Are they on a mission for their homeland? Are they an exile? 
> 
> Or for an intro to an adventure for a home campaign: 
> ...


 Great idea except for ... gnomes.  :Small Yuk:   :Small Big Grin:

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## Brookshw

> Great idea except for ... gnomes.


Burn them, burn them I say!

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## MadBear

> To me, that's a huge red flag that the player wants to be a special snowflake. It has protagonist syndrome written all over it. "I know you said that there were only elves and dwarves, but I want to break the rules because I'm special." I'd be much more willing to allow "I use the mechanics of a human but am a dwarf or elf, just a weird one" than that. In part, because that human now has no connection to the world. He knows nothing, is part of nothing, has no reason to be there, his background is now meaningless, etc.
> 
> Setting invariants (what races exist, how they interact, the existence or non-existence of planar portals that just dump random people from other random worlds there, among other things) are, to me, inviolate. Whether mine or others. They're a fundamental part of what makes the setting different than others. And make up a large chunk of my enjoyment of the game. "Intruder" characters (including "I'm <other fiction character> with the serial numbers filed off") make me exceedingly unhappy because they shatter any ability I have to believe in the world. It reduces the world to the thickness and depth of cardboard.


Completely disagree. 

I think context here is important though. I'm playing with a group of friends I've known for over a decade and I know they're coming into any of my games with good and fun intent. I don't play with random people or people I barely know. This to me speaks more about the people who come to your table, then it does to what's happening as a whole. 

I'll also point out that a lot of fun ideas/themes of our table come out of our shared liking of anime, which has a strong tradition of Isekai (people appearing from another world). It tends to be really fun, because they get to experience my world without any of it's background knowledge, because both they and their characters literally don't know the world they've entered. 

I can see where this would be an issue if you had a player who was just "I found this powerful build online/I want to play Thor but in D&D/I read the campaign so I'm making a character specifically suited to win". But it isn't really WOTC's job to tell you who to play with. If you're playing with people who need strict boundaries, then give your group strict boundaries. I'm not, and think it's silly to expect the company to enforce those for me.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Completely disagree. 
> 
> I think context here is important though. I'm playing with a group of friends I've known for over a decade and I know they're coming into any of my games with good and fun intent. I don't play with random people or people I barely know. This to me speaks more about the people who come to your table, then it does to what's happening as a whole. 
> 
> I'll also point out that a lot of fun ideas/themes of our table come out of our shared liking of anime, which has a strong tradition of Isekai (people appearing from another world). It tends to be really fun, because they get to experience my world without any of it's background knowledge, because both they and their characters literally don't know the world they've entered. 
> 
> I can see where this would be an issue if you had a player who was just "I found this powerful build online/I want to play Thor but in D&D/I read the campaign so I'm making a character specifically suited to win". But it isn't really WOTC's job to tell you who to play with. If you're playing with people who need strict boundaries, then give your group strict boundaries. I'm not, and think it's silly to expect the company to enforce those for me.


I expect _settings_ to have strict boundaries. Regardless of who is playing in them. Because otherwise they're not settings I'm interested in playing in. The restrictions are a necessary part of making an interesting setting--"anything goes from anywhere" is just incoherent mush.

And exploring interesting settings are 90% of the reason I play. A setting that feels like it was slapped together for this party's adventures, to me, is a total non-starter. I don't want a paper backdrop for "cool things", I want a setting that feels like it could be real. And that requires preparation, careful thought, worldbuilding, and yes, careful curation of what exists. So if you're publishing a setting for others to use, those pieces (including the restrictions) are necessary parts of having a product that means something.

*Anyone* can slap together an incoherent kitchen sink no thicker than paper in no time flat. All you need is a random name generator or two and a random quest generator. But if you publish that as a setting, I reserve the right to say that you're just milking things for dollars and should be ashamed of yourself.

----------


## Psyren

> Frankly, I am more concerned that the lore about what is IN the settings will continue to be watered down to "it's this, maybe, unless it's this other thing, and some things aren't like that at all, and we won't be specific about any of it because that stifles creativity or whatever: do whatever you want, DM! Lack of lore is a feature, not a bug!"


There is, yet again, a clear difference between "what is in the settings" and "what _adventurers_ in the settings are allowed to be/do." If you have aspirations of running AL games you need to accept this, and if you don't, it doesn't matter, impose whatever restrictions or exclusions you want.




> I'm not asking them to provide everything, but I am asking them to provide more. I am not demanding outright exclusion of any species. I am asking for clarification as to _how unusual_ certain species are in different locations.


As unusual as they need to be for you and your group to have fun. If that's not good enough, I have nothing else to offer you.




> If I want to make up my own setting, I can do that. If I am buying a product, I expect them to fill in basic details about the world.


They've done that. If you disagree, that's fine, don't buy it.

----------


## Kane0

> I expect _settings_ to have strict boundaries. Regardless of who is playing in them. Because otherwise they're not settings I'm interested in playing in. The restrictions are a necessary part of making an interesting setting--"anything goes from anywhere" is just incoherent mush.


Aye. By way of another example, 'what is this Salarian doing on Tuchanka and how is he not dead?'

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## PhoenixPhyre

> There is, yet again, a clear difference between "what is in the settings" and "what _adventurers_ in the settings are allowed to be/do." If you have aspirations of running AL games you need to accept this, and if you don't, it doesn't matter, impose whatever restrictions or exclusions you want.


As far as "what races exist" and "how are they viewed", the second is a subset of the first. You can't be an adventurer in the setting if you don't first exist. Adventurers don't exist outside the setting, they're created and grow up within the context of that setting. Unless the setting makes the _explicit_ allowance for isekai characters. Or you have an incoherent, paper-thin setting not worth calling a setting[1]. 


[1] Although most isekai-enabled settings are also the latter...in part because most settings _period_ are the latter. /setting-snob

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## Atranen

> As unusual as they need to be for you and your group to have fun. If that's not good enough, I have nothing else to offer you.
> 
> They've done that. If you disagree, that's fine, don't buy it.


Well, looks like the only reasonable response to WOTC is to quit d&d and play something else. That's pretty sad imo.

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## Psyren

> Aye. By way of another example, 'what is this Salarian doing on Tuchanka and how is he not dead?'


Yeah, it's not like an entire Salarian STG team infiltrated Tuchanka multiple times, or a PC Salarian party member got special license from the clan leader to come and go freely, or anything along those lines.

Again, adventurers are not normal.




> As far as "what races exist" and "how are they viewed", the second is a subset of the first. You can't be an adventurer in the setting if you don't first exist.


If you go in with the mindset of erring on the side of permissiveness/enabling fun, you'll usually find a way to justify the Salarian PC on Tuchanka or the Drow PC in Evermeet etc. If you truly can't or dont want to, thats fine, ban that combination and avoid AL. Hypotheticals about background NPCs the players may never even meet are only as relevant as you, the DM, make them.




> Well, looks like the only reasonable response to WOTC is to quit d&d and play something else. That's pretty sad imo.


I never said you have to "quit D&D". You can play D&D just fine without buying a single book from WotC. You can even buy the crunch separately now for much less money.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> If you go in with the mindset of erring on the side of permissiveness/enabling fun, you'll usually find a way to justify the Salarian PC on Tuchanka or the Drow PC in Evermeet etc. If you truly can't or dont want to, thats fine, ban that combination and avoid AL. Hypotheticals about background NPCs the players may never even meet are only as relevant as you, the DM, make them.


Permissiveness _doesn't_ enable fun. At least not reliably. A DM who says that it doesn't matter what the setting says, you can play <random thing that doesn't fit> or who comes up with BS explanations for why it fits _destroys my fun_. Because it makes for incoherent settings.

And this is a key example of the new model of "if you don't let players do whatever they want, you hate fun". Which _sucks_. Yet is what they're pushing more and more.

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## Atranen

> I never said you have to "quit D&D". You can play D&D just fine without buying a single book from WotC. You can even buy the crunch separately now for much less money.


Functionally, it means quit the AL group I've been a part of for years, stop engaging with new content, and gradually disengage from the game as people move to the new books and in a direction I don't agree with. 

I'm not planning to actually do that; I just think it's a very poor response to a criticism that many people have and that could be partially addressed (at least in a way I find satisfying) by adding a few lines to the rulebooks.

EDIT: I guess to expand, the reason I don't like it is that it feels very dismissive. Don't like it? Play something else. But like it or not, whatever WOTC puts out is the major product in the industry and, unless they screw up pretty badly, is what most people will be playing. I know someone who can't stand 5e and only plays his own hacked system; he can't keep a regular game going. At the end of the day, we all have to engage with WOTC to some extent if we want to keep playing. And that means saying 'go play something else' isn't an effective response to criticism.

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## Psyren

> Permissiveness _doesn't_ enable fun. At least not reliably. A DM who says that it doesn't matter what the setting says, you can play <random thing that doesn't fit> or who comes up with BS explanations for why it fits _destroys my fun_. Because it makes for incoherent settings.


And that's fine, it just means you're not suited to DM AL games. You can impose whatever restrictions you want at your home table, nobody is saying you can't.




> Functionally, it means quit the AL group I've been a part of for years, stop engaging with new content, and gradually disengage from the game as people move to the new books and in a direction I don't agree with.


You don't have to buy a single WotC book to play AL either. Basic exists.

EDIT: I never once said "play something else." I said "DMing AL may not be for you given what you told me" and "you don't have to give WotC your money to play D&D."

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## Atranen

> You don't have to buy a single WotC book to play AL either. Basic exists.
> 
> EDIT: I never once said "play something else." I said "DMing AL may not be for you given what you told me" and "you don't have to give WotC your money to play D&D."


I've DMed AL for years. I like DMing AL. I'm not going to stop because of a disagreement about lore. But neither should the fact that I _could_ stop be used to dismiss criticism.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> And that's fine, it just means you're not suited to DM AL games. You can impose whatever restrictions you want at your home table, nobody is saying you can't.


But the very strong "let everyone do everything or you're a bad DM who hates fun" attitude _does_ affect me--it inculcates a sense of absolute entitlement and expectation among new players.

And it puts an absolute lie to your "well, that's what settings are for" attitude--it's blatantly obvious that they just won't publish any setting material that isn't "everything goes and unless you agree you are bad."

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## Psyren

> I've DMed AL for years. I like DMing AL. I'm not going to stop because of a disagreement about lore. But neither should the fact that I _could_ stop be used to dismiss criticism.


I have no other response to your criticism; you're entitled to your opinion, as am I.




> But the very strong "let everyone do everything or you're a bad DM who hates fun" attitude _does_ affect me--it inculcates a sense of absolute entitlement and expectation among new players.
> 
> And it puts an absolute lie to your "well, that's what settings are for" attitude--it's blatantly obvious that they just won't publish any setting material that isn't "everything goes and unless you agree you are bad."


What would they possibly have to gain by publishing a setting that strictly excludes a bunch of the material e.g. races they sunk expensive design time into making? Help me see the business sense in that.

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## Atranen

> What would they possibly have to gain by publishing a setting that strictly excludes a bunch of the material e.g. races they sunk expensive design time into making? Help me see the business sense in that.


I suppose they should publish a single setting book which merges material from every setting into one. Wouldn't want to waste valuable time.

If you can't see the business sense in making a book that I and many other people in this thread have explicitly asked for, I can't help you.

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## Psyren

> I suppose they should publish a single setting book which merges material from every setting into one. Wouldn't want to waste valuable time.


They are, it's called Planescape. (And Spelljammer.)




> If you can't see the business sense in making a book that I and many other people in this thread have explicitly asked for, I can't help you.


A whole thread you say. Well I'm convinced.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> What would they possibly have to gain by publishing a setting that strictly excludes a bunch of the material e.g. races they sunk expensive design time into making? Help me see the business sense in that.





> I suppose they should publish a single setting book which merges material from every setting into one. Wouldn't want to waste valuable time.
> 
> If you can't see the business sense in making a book that I and many other people in this thread have explicitly asked for, I can't help you.


Yeah. I'm with Atranen here.

There is exactly _zero_ point in publishing an "anything goes" setting. Because that isn't actually a setting at all. It's the explicit lack of a setting. It's an anti-setting. Something that can only be useful ironically, as a joke. Because it takes zero effort. Careful curation is how museums make their reputations[1]. "Just shove everything together" doesn't actually work in any arena it's ever been tried in. Let alone here.

And Planescape and Spelljammer _isn't_ "everything all in one". And more importantly _they failed as settings, in part because they just lumped random crap together_. Neither planescape nor spelljammer were ever commercial successes. And they only succeeded to the degree that they set restrictions.

And your attitude is exactly what I fear about the new monitization scheme--everything will be done with "how does this make us maximum money" as the only aim. Not "how does this make a better product." In the short run, going hog wild, no restrictions makes money. In the long run, careful curation is much more meaningful.

[1] there's no money in museums, but lots of prestige. And it all depends on curation.

----------


## Atranen

> There is exactly _zero_ point in publishing an "anything goes" setting. Because that isn't actually a setting at all. It's the explicit lack of a setting. It's an anti-setting. Something that can only be useful ironically, as a joke. Because it takes zero effort. Careful curation is how museums make their reputations[1]. "Just shove everything together" doesn't actually work in any arena it's ever been tried in. Let alone here.
> 
> And Planescape and Spelljammer _isn't_ "everything all in one". And more importantly _they failed as settings, in part because they just lumped random crap together_. Neither planescape nor spelljammer were ever commercial successes. And they only succeeded to the degree that they set restrictions.
> 
> And your attitude is exactly what I fear about the new monitization scheme--everything will be done with "how does this make us maximum money" as the only aim. Not "how does this make a better product." In the short run, going hog wild, no restrictions makes money. In the long run, careful curation is much more meaningful.
> 
> [1] there's no money in museums, but lots of prestige. And it all depends on curation.


Yes, yes, and yes. Incidentally, despite me singling out Tabaxi and Yuan Ti, I'd happily play a setting that placed them front and center if it integrated them into the world in a coherent way. It's not about 'this species is good, this one is bad'. It's about internal consistency and the feeling of being grounded.

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## Brookshw

> What would they possibly have to gain by publishing a setting that strictly excludes a bunch of the material e.g. races they sunk expensive design time into making? Help me see the business sense in that.


Easy, publish good settings and they sell, publish bad settings they don't. You can publish generic content titles on tandem and people will buy them for the parts that are compatible with the setting they like, and to use in their home settings. Overall, more sales, huzzah!




> .
> And Planescape and Spelljammer _isn't_ "everything all in one". And more importantly _they failed as settings, in part because they just lumped random crap together_.


Everyone's entitled to be wrong, don't feel bad  :Small Tongue:

----------


## Segev

> Originally Posted by Segev
> 
> 
> Frankly, I am more concerned that the lore about what is IN the settings will continue to be watered down to "it's this, maybe, unless it's this other thing, and some things aren't like that at all, and we won't be specific about any of it because that stifles creativity or whatever: do whatever you want, DM! Lack of lore is a feature, not a bug!"
> 
> 
> There is, yet again, a clear difference between "what is in the settings" and "what _adventurers_ in the settings are allowed to be/do." If you have aspirations of running AL games you need to accept this, and if you don't, it doesn't matter, impose whatever restrictions or exclusions you want.


I'm not sure how this makes sense as a response to what I wrote. It seems to me like you're responding to something else. Did you quote the wrong thing? 

I said nothing in the bit you quoted about adventurers being allowed or disallowed from doing anything. I was referring to the continual diminishment of lore in every new release, and watering down previous lore to ensure that nothing concrete is said about anything. For "creativity," you see.

----------


## JNAProductions

My way of having fun is not the same as your way.
My way is not superior to yours.
My way is not something that should be imposed on others.

The same is true for everyone.

----------


## MadBear

> I expect _settings_ to have strict boundaries. Regardless of who is playing in them. Because otherwise they're not settings I'm interested in playing in. The restrictions are a necessary part of making an interesting setting--"anything goes from anywhere" is just incoherent mush.
> 
> And exploring interesting settings are 90% of the reason I play. A setting that feels like it was slapped together for this party's adventures, to me, is a total non-starter. I don't want a paper backdrop for "cool things", I want a setting that feels like it could be real. And that requires preparation, careful thought, worldbuilding, and yes, careful curation of what exists. So if you're publishing a setting for others to use, those pieces (including the restrictions) are necessary parts of having a product that means something.
> 
> *Anyone* can slap together an incoherent kitchen sink no thicker than paper in no time flat. All you need is a random name generator or two and a random quest generator. But if you publish that as a setting, I reserve the right to say that you're just milking things for dollars and should be ashamed of yourself.


You are completely missing the point. The *world* should have boundaries and a well built world should have depth and interesting things that are worth exploring. As a DM it is up to you how much you want your players to be apart of that world. 

You seem to think when I say that I allow my players to play a weird race that isn't typical, I'm saying "Welp, guess slug people are everywhere and make sense now". When that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying if my player is super interested in playing a slug person, we're going to have a conversation. Depending on the world, the tone I'm going for, the other players, and the genre of story were doing, I may or may not allow that type of character in. But what I wouldn't want to have happen is a book to say "X can't and doesn't exist in this setting". Because in a game where the players characters can transverse dimensions, I don't mind allowing them to play something weird. That doesn't make it the norm. 

What I'd instead suggest makes more sense, is laying out how the typical world works. "This city is primarily Human, with some elves, dwarves, and less then 1% halflings". This lets me know what this cities norms are. If I want to allow a player to have a weird race, we'll just talk about why and how they got their (and that's if we deem it appropriate. I'm not even saying you have to allow it at all). 

I actually don't disagree that restrictions can be an important part of design. That drives innovation and ingenuity. 

Basically, I'll I'm hearing from you is "I don't want my players to do/play/have X". Ok. Don't allow them to have that. Simple. You're the DM, and you get to make those choices (barring AL, which I've already said is its own beast). 

Last thing I'll say. This isn't some new thing being hoisted on us by WOTC. Gary Gygax himself gave advice on allowing players to be a dragon if that's what they wanted. The original designer himself thought that it would be ok, if the DM was cool with it. Because really, at the end of the day the rules can't save you if you and the players disagree.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Basically, I'll I'm hearing from you is "I don't want my players to do/play/have X". Ok. Don't allow them to have that. Simple. You're the DM, and you get to make those choices (barring AL, which I've already said is its own beast).


No. I'm speaking here mostly as a _player_ (because that's the only way I'll play in someone else's setting). I want the DM to say "X is allowed, Y is not allowed/does not exist." And hold firm to that. I want the DM to preserve setting invariants. Because otherwise it's a strong signal that the DM doesn't actually care about setting integrity and thus it's a game I will not want to play in.

If someone comes to a table and insists on playing something that doesn't organically flow from the setting itself, that's a red flag that I will not enjoy playing with that player. If the DM allows it, it's a red flag that I won't enjoy the game.

In fact, the _absence_ of hard, enforced restrictions (aka "anything goes") is a glaring red flag with fireworks and sirens that I will not enjoy the game. Because I primarily play to explore a setting. And that requires that the setting, _including the party members_, have enough depth and coherence for it to be plausibly real. Throwing in isekai characters or "I'm random race that fell through a portal" or whatever immediately tells me that there's a large chance that the setting won't meet those criteria.

I'll confess. I'm an unabashed setting snob. There's not a published WotC setting that meets my standards. Eberron came close (despite not being my favorite milieu)...before they trashed everything unique and coherent about it to shove it into the current "every cosmology is actually the same cosmology, every thing is exactly the same and there's nothing allowed to be unique or invariant, it's all just one mush" model.

I *want* non-standard cosmologies. And for those to matter. I *want* to be told "no, that doesn't fit the world." Or "can you do it like <this>?" I want to work with the DM to fit my characters deeply into the world. And I want the other players to do the same--bringing characters that only have glancing connections to the world (both macro and micro), its ongoing issues, themes, and cultures is, to me, a sign that we're a bad fit for each other as players.

-------

As a DM, I pick and choose what I allow. But I'm very open to homebrewing something to fit _both_ the player and the world. What I object to is being told that not allowing everything is _not being open to fun._ That fun can only come if players are allowed to do and bring whatever they want, connections to the world notwithstanding.

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## Psyren

> Easy, publish good settings and they sell, publish bad settings they don't.


Oh look, that thing they're doing! Great insight.




> I said nothing in the bit you quoted about adventurers being allowed or disallowed from doing anything. I was referring to the continual diminishment of lore in every new release, and watering down previous lore to ensure that nothing concrete is said about anything. For "creativity," you see.


How do you define "concrete?"

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## OldTrees1

> You are completely missing the point. The *world* should have boundaries and a well built world should have depth and interesting things that are worth exploring. As a DM it is up to you how much you want your players to be apart of that world.


You might also be missing the point.

You can hire the greatest salesman in the world. If you are selling a setting splatbook without including a setting, then why would I buy the book? My world is up to me to build, but what value (inspiration, utility, things to borrow) do I get from a setting book if the book dilutes its content further and further?

On the other hand if you write a settings book with lots of concrete lore, then there might be lots of value I can find in the book. I can always discard restrictions I didn't want.

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## Brookshw

> Oh look, that thing they're doing! Great insight.


You mean how SJ was devoid of setting and was comprised of about 6 pages of actual rules? Pull the other one, it's got bells on  :Small Tongue:

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## OldTrees1

> You mean how SJ was devoid of setting and was comprised of about 6 pages of actual rules? Pull the other one, it's got bells on


Spelljammer is my 2nd favorite setting. They made 3 books and none were worthwhile to me.
In 2023 my favorite setting, Planescape, will get a book. I don't anticipate it being worthwhile to me.

This is not what successful looks like.

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## Psyren

> You mean how SJ was devoid of setting and was comprised of about 6 pages of actual rules? Pull the other one, it's got bells on


You're the one who brought up sales, not me  :Small Cool:

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## Brookshw

> You're the one who brought up sales, not me


The heck are you talking about? You asked how it made business sense. Asked, and answered  :Small Tongue:

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## Gignere

> No. I'm speaking here mostly as a _player_ (because that's the only way I'll play in someone else's setting). I want the DM to say "X is allowed, Y is not allowed/does not exist." And hold firm to that. I want the DM to preserve setting invariants. Because otherwise it's a strong signal that the DM doesn't actually care about setting integrity and thus it's a game I will not want to play in.
> 
> If someone comes to a table and insists on playing something that doesn't organically flow from the setting itself, that's a red flag that I will not enjoy playing with that player. If the DM allows it, it's a red flag that I won't enjoy the game.
> 
> In fact, the _absence_ of hard, enforced restrictions (aka "anything goes") is a glaring red flag with fireworks and sirens that I will not enjoy the game. Because I primarily play to explore a setting. And that requires that the setting, _including the party members_, have enough depth and coherence for it to be plausibly real. Throwing in isekai characters or "I'm random race that fell through a portal" or whatever immediately tells me that there's a large chance that the setting won't meet those criteria.
> 
> I'll confess. I'm an unabashed setting snob. There's not a published WotC setting that meets my standards. Eberron came close (despite not being my favorite milieu)...before they trashed everything unique and coherent about it to shove it into the current "every cosmology is actually the same cosmology, every thing is exactly the same and there's nothing allowed to be unique or invariant, it's all just one mush" model.
> 
> I *want* non-standard cosmologies. And for those to matter. I *want* to be told "no, that doesn't fit the world." Or "can you do it like <this>?" I want to work with the DM to fit my characters deeply into the world. And I want the other players to do the same--bringing characters that only have glancing connections to the world (both macro and micro), its ongoing issues, themes, and cultures is, to me, a sign that we're a bad fit for each other as players.
> ...


I think the problem is if WoTC catered to your tastes they will turn off more paying customers than gain. WoTC has to cast a wide net and leave the tightening/restrictions to the individual DMs that know their own tastes and their players tastes better. If they published stuff that said no dwarf/elf/gnome the players that plays nothing but dwarves (serious Ive met a few of these),will be lost sales, or just plain excluded.

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## Psyren

> The heck are you talking about? You asked how it made business sense. Asked, and answered


You said "publish good settings and they sell." It sold. Asked and answered  :Small Cool:

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## Brookshw

> You said "publish good settings and they sell." It sold. Asked and answered


The one they immediately published a retraction on after people got up in arms? Keep swinging, you'll get one eventually  :Small Big Grin:  :Small Wink:

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## MadBear

> You might also be missing the point.
> 
> You can hire the greatest salesman in the world. If you are selling a setting splatbook without including a setting, then why would I buy the book? My world is up to me to build, but what value (inspiration, utility, things to borrow) do I get from a setting book if the book dilutes its content further and further?
> 
> On the other hand if you write a settings book with lots of concrete lore, then there might be lots of value I can find in the book. I can always discard restrictions I didn't want.


I'm not even sure how your response addresses what I'm talking about at all. I haven't been talking about setting vs splat books at all. I'm not even against having a setting with lots of concrete lore. I'm just saying it'd be ridiculous for WOTC to instead of affirming the norm of a setting, to instead say "Orcs are not allowed in this world". If I'm being as open as possible, I'm talking not about the DM but the players and what they're playing. It just seems like many on this board play with really toxic crappy players, and want the rules to fix that (hint: they won't). 

If you're building a world and you really want to have set races that the players must choose from. cool, more power to you. If you want to play a setting and not allow races that aren't specific to that setting. cool, more power to you. If you want them to publish a setting and mandate that players can't play X race in this setting.... not so cool. 




> I'm speaking here mostly as a player (because that's the only way I'll play in someone else's setting). I want the DM to say "X is allowed, Y is not allowed/does not exist." And hold firm to that. I want the DM to preserve setting invariants. Because otherwise it's a strong signal that the DM doesn't actually care about setting integrity and thus it's a game I will not want to play in.


This exactly right here is what I mean when I say, that people are coming here expecting WOTC to fix table problems. Not *every* DM that allows a player to play something setting invariant doesn't care about the setting. That might be the case with *some* DM's, but bad DM's/player/people are not WOTC's problem. You obviously value setting invariance. I hope you have a good group of friends that share that value, and you enjoy playing D&D with them. I DM and play with my own group of friends and in addition I run D&D for my local high school. The expectations I set at the high school are vastly different then the ones I set for my friends, but I don't expect the company to change the game just because you get the occasional murderhobo/sociopath student who wants to skin the mayor and murder the whole town. (yes, I've had that player, and after a painful session, he was given the opportunity to find his fun in other ways, or to leave the group. He no longer plays D&D with us, but still stops by occasionally for advice because he now DM's for his friends, who are looking for that sort of game). 

I guess, what I'm not understanding from your position, is this intrinsicate lack of trust in other peoples motives. Sure, maybe the person asking to play a bugbear is doing so because they're a powergaming jerk, or maybe they think playing a monster would be really fun. As a DM, you're well within your right to allow this or disallow it. If you allow it, your within your right to have it noted by every NPC, or completely ignored. This game begs for you to use your imagination. 

In a world of monsters and crazy magic, how truly unrealistic is it to allow a person to play a Tabaxi, who in a setting that doesn't contain them just represents a person whose family was placed under an ancient curse that mutated their family? I mean, this setting already allows us to cast spells that permanently change people, I don't see how this breaks anything intrinsically.

Heck, to use an actual example. I run a world that is post-apocalyptic where if you choose any base fantasy race, you come from an island that represents the last bastion of intelligent races. Or at least that what I tell my players playing in this world. Because when a friend wanted to play a fallen aasimar, I asked them how they thought this might fit in my setting? I tasked them with coming up with a few different pitches for how he could exist in my world where aasimar simply didn't seem to exist (them and all angelic beings including the original gods were wiped out in a massive attacks from the hells). After some time and talk, we collaborated that there exists a small floating tower housing the last 100 aasimar who had survived the war and this floating tower orbited the world, passing over the area only once every hundred years. Additionally, they vowed to never interact with mortals again, for they blame themselves for the worlds destruction. None of this came about through lazy allowing whatever for any reason world building. It came from working with my group and making it fun for everyone (myself included). I've also nixed characters that were only being played because they thought they found a broken combo.

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## PhoenixPhyre

As a note, here is the entire list of non-explicitly-generic "sourcebooks" (as opposed to explicitly-marked adventures) on D&D Beyond for the entire run of 5e (in the order they appear on D&D Beyond, which appears to be mostly publication order):

- SCAG -- unambiguously a setting book, albeit more of "player's companion". Didn't sell well and is, if not "legacy" like Volos and MToF, at least not promoted. Also licensed 3rd party.
- WGtE (Eberron, version 1) -- Playtest, not really formally published physically. An actual setting guide, if also more of a player's companion.
- GGtR (Ravnica) -- Appears to mostly be setting material.
- Acquisitions Incorporated -- 3rd party, albeit "blessed". 
- E: RftLW (Eberron, version 2) -- Appears mostly to be setting material. Explicitly replaces WGtE where they conflict.
- EGtW (Wildemount) -- 3rd party, albeit "blessed"
- MOoT (Theros) -- Appears mostly to be setting material.
- VRGtR (Ravenloft) -- Appears mostly to be setting material with micro-adventures.
- Strixhaven -- If it's a setting, it's a micro-setting. Mostly focused around the included adventures.
- Spelljammer (one of the books) -- More of a pamphlet, with basically no actual setting information.

Of the actual full setting books, there are

3 "normal" D&D settings (ie those owned entirely by the D&D side of WotC)--SCAG, Eberron, and Ravenloft.
2 "blessed 3rd party" settings--AI and Wildemount.
2 M:tG settings--Theros and Ravnica.

To be honest, that's more than I remembered. I'd thought that Theros and Ravnica, for instance, as well as E:RftLW were more adventure books than they are.

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## Witty Username

> You mean how SJ was devoid of setting and was comprised of about 6 pages of actual rules? Pull the other one, it's got bells on


To eaches own, but the rules for spelljammer  in 5e are around 90% the same as they were in AD&D, the 10% is Phlogiston(I guess people didn't like random TPKs), and the crystal spheres, even taking into account the loss of distinction between minor and major spelljammer helms (not necessarily a bad thing) the actual play is essentially the same.

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## Brookshw

> To eaches own, but the rules for spelljammer  in 5e are around 90% the same as they were in AD&D, the 10% is Phlogiston(I guess people didn't like random TPKs), and the crystal spheres, even taking into account the loss of distinction between minor and major spelljammer helms (not necessarily a bad thing) the actual play is essentially the same.


If you like it, have at it! That said, for the first few weeks after release it was the lowest rated book of the edition on Amazon, that says something. If you're counting, that's three strikes, it's out as a success story for providing an actual setting (heck, doesn't even mention the titular Spelljammer!)

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## Psyren

> The one they immediately published a retraction on after people got up in arms? Keep swinging, you'll get one eventually


That doesn't affect sales, but keep reaching  :Small Big Grin: 




> I'm not even sure how your response addresses what I'm talking about at all. I haven't been talking about setting vs splat books at all. I'm not even against having a setting with lots of concrete lore. I'm just saying it'd be ridiculous for WOTC to instead of affirming the norm of a setting, to instead say "Orcs are not allowed in this world". If I'm being as open as possible, I'm talking not about the DM but the players and what they're playing. It just seems like many on this board play with really toxic crappy players, and want the rules to fix that (hint: they won't). 
> 
> If you're building a world and you really want to have set races that the players must choose from. cool, more power to you. If you want to play a setting and not allow races that aren't specific to that setting. cool, more power to you. If you want them to publish a setting and mandate that players can't play X race in this setting.... not so cool.


This! Glad someone gets it at least.




> This exactly right here is what I mean when I say, that people are coming here expecting WOTC to fix table problems. Not *every* DM that allows a player to play something setting invariant doesn't care about the setting. That might be the case with *some* DM's, but bad DM's/player/people are not WOTC's problem. You obviously value setting invariance. I hope you have a good group of friends that share that value, and you enjoy playing D&D with them.


Also this.

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## OldTrees1

> I'm not even sure how your response addresses what I'm talking about at all. I haven't been talking about setting vs splat books at all. I'm not even against having a setting with lots of concrete lore. I'm just saying it'd be ridiculous for WOTC to instead of affirming the norm of a setting, to instead say "Orcs are not allowed in this world".


I did not say your comments were wrong.  As a 3rd party observer I watched the thread derail into people talking past each other. Sometimes about different topics. (Cheesegear was the catalyst). I tried to point out a communication disconnect.

Among the many invalid points and the few valid points, one of the few valid points was about how decreasing the value of a setting book decreases the value of the setting book.




> If I'm being as open as possible, I'm talking not about the DM but the players and what they're playing. It just seems like many on this board play with really toxic crappy players, and want the rules to fix that (hint: they won't).


Yeah, it seems like that for a few forum members. At least going off the face value of some of the bad points made on both sides of that derail. Luckily we both have great groups.


To return to the original topic, what are your thoughts on the "WotC will increase the monetization of D&D"? I don't think they will increase the book rate (unlike what they did in MtG) and the book value has been declining in my opinion (The Spelljammer books were not worth it to this Spelljammer fan). They will try to increase monetization somehow. I am not sure it will be something valuable or if it will be anti consumer instead.

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## PhoenixPhyre

A setting invariant isn't something you can disregard at will. That's rather what those words _mean_ -- invariant doesn't mean "changes all the time." So yes, if you easily disregard invariants, it _is_ a fair assumption that you don't care much for the setting itself.

I want setting designers to take firm stands and produce invariants. And label them as such. If there are load-bearing gods, _say as much._ If there are cultures important to the themes of the setting, _say so_. If there are facts of cosmology or metaphysics that matter, _write them down and stick to them._ Not "well, it can be whatever you want". Because that's not a setting, that's mush.

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## JNAProductions

And other people dont care so much, or even delight in smashing inviolates of the setting, to use another word.

Are they wrong?

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## Psyren

> A setting invariant isn't something you can disregard at will. That's rather what those words _mean_ -- invariant doesn't mean "changes all the time." So yes, if you easily disregard invariants, it _is_ a fair assumption that you don't care much for the setting itself.
> 
> I want setting designers to take firm stands and produce invariants. And label them as such. If there are load-bearing gods, _say as much._ If there are cultures important to the themes of the setting, _say so_. If there are facts of cosmology or metaphysics that matter, _write them down and stick to them._ Not "well, it can be whatever you want". Because that's not a setting, that's mush.


I'm fine with setting invariants being things that exist. But I suspect that the quantity of things that I want to be invariable are vastly fewer than the things you do, particularly those things adventurers are subject to like PC race choice.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> And other people dont care so much, or even delight in smashing inviolates of the setting, to use another word.
> 
> Are they wrong?


Wrong? That's the wrong word. Do they not care about the setting (which was the thing asked)? I'd say that's unambiguously yes. Are they people I don't want to play with (in that setting)? Also unambiguously yes. But right or wrong? It's a matter of personal taste, to which that word doesn't apply.




> I'm fine with setting invariants being things that exist. But I suspect that the quantity of things that I want to be invariable are vastly fewer than the things you do, particularly those things adventurers are subject to like PC race choice.


Where as "what races exist" is a key invariant for me. Much more so than classes--races and relationships between races and cultures are things that exist in the setting. If you alter those, you fundamentally alter the setting and require rewriting huge chunks to have anything coherent, because the effects ripple outward. Races are the _least_ meta part of character creation, the _most_ tied to the setting--even backgrounds are fuzzy enough and customizable enough.

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## Psyren

> Do they not care about the setting (which was the thing asked)? I'd say that's unambiguously yes.


Your use of unambiguously is unambiguously wrong.




> Are they people I don't want to play with (in that setting)? Also unambiguously yes.


That one is fine, go nuts.




> Where as "what races exist" is a key invariant for me.


Noted.

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## SpikeFightwicky

> To return to the original topic, what are your thoughts on the "WotC will increase the monetization of D&D"? I don't think they will increase the book rate (unlike what they did in MtG) and the book value has been declining in my opinion (The Spelljammer books were not worth it to this Spelljammer fan). They will try to increase monetization somehow. I am not sure it will be something valuable or if it will be anti consumer instead.


Well, in the webinar, they mention that the focus was going to be on monetization players, since DMs tend to already spend the most.  They didn't go into details, but they do mention "recurring spending options to unlock the kind of post-sale monetization video games have."  That could mean a lot of things, at best ok, at worst terrible.  I'm hoping they don't use MTG Arena as an example!

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## OldTrees1

> Well, in the webinar, they mention that the focus was going to be on monetization players, since DMs tend to already spend the most.  They didn't go into details, but they do mention "recurring spending options to unlock the kind of post-sale monetization video games have."  That could mean a lot of things, at best ok, at worst terrible.  I'm hoping they don't use MTG Arena as an example!


Yeah, knowing WotC, that sounds either ineffective or anti consumer. I am hoping they will be ineffective.

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## Witty Username

> If you like it, have at it! That said, for the first few weeks after release it was the lowest rated book of the edition on Amazon, that says something. If you're counting, that's three strikes, it's out as a success story for providing an actual setting (heck, doesn't even mention the titular Spelljammer!)


It says that people complained about it, people complain about problems that don't exist all the time. People react to complaints about problems that don't exist all the time. (I myself only bought the book a week or so ago, from the conversation I figured it wasn't worth the effort, turns out it had some utility for my playgroup)

Like say, I didn't buy SCAG because I looked over it and read it as having no useable setting information. Is that because its a bad book? Is that because it didn't match my expectations? Is it because I get more utility out of my 3.5 FR campaign setting book I already have, so the additional material is unnecessary?
All of them have some truth value, I personally think it is a bad book primarily. But as those other things have some truth value, I can't necessarily say that, with confidence, a new player, or player that hasn't already immersed themselves in FR, wouldn't find the book valuable.

As for Spelljammer, the spelljamming rules are useable, its Astral plane rules ryhme with the 3.5 info from manuel of the planes. I would prefer them using the Phlogiston stuff personally, but it is also the most problematic to port from a gameplay perspective, and using the Astral plane has some argument of jiving better with setting restrictions (that thing that some people care about).

All this is to say, the 5e Spelljammer rules have utility, and those of us that feel better kitbashing the AD&D rules instead, probably already did that, and can still do that. The 5e book isn't improved by being simply redundant.

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## Brookshw

> It says that people complained about it, people complain about problems that don't exist all the time. People react to complaints about problems that don't exist all the time. (I myself only bought the book a week or so ago, from the conversation I figured it wasn't worth the effort, turns out it had some utility for my playgroup)


It says more people were complaining about it than any other D&D title on average at the time, that's an important distinction which speaks to deeper issues. Agreed, someone will always have something to complain about, but when the average complaint ratio to product is significantly imbalanced, that says something about the product itself. Glad it had some utility at least for you.




> Like say, *I didn't buy* SCAG because I looked over it and read it as having *no useable setting information*.


See, there you go. 




> All this is to say, the 5e Spelljammer rules have utility, and those of us that feel better kitbashing the AD&D rules instead, probably already did that, and can still do that. The 5e book isn't improved by being simply redundant.


Understood. Oddly, the ships UA which predated Salt Marsh were further and (imo) better developed that SJ's ship rules, and that's not even taking into account that lore/fluff are relevant to settings; I wouldn't call including that content (even if they were to,..let's say "polish" it up) redundant despite it previously having been published in the late 80s/early 90s. Personally, it was a strange choice to have pulled in a number of DS monsters rather than some of the setting significant things from SJ, I mean, I get you don't need 13 varieties of comet monsters, but no witchlight marauders, spirit warriors, bionoids, etc.? Did they have a bunch of DS stuff ready to go and decided to repurpose it or something?

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## MadBear

> A setting invariant isn't something you can disregard at will. That's rather what those words _mean_ -- invariant doesn't mean "changes all the time." So yes, if you easily disregard invariants, it _is_ a fair assumption that you don't care much for the setting itself.


So again, your talking about the setting and I'm talking about the players. To easily show that youre point that disregarding invariants means you don't care about the setting, I'd ask this:  

Does this mean works like John Carter, Isekai anime (That time I was reincarnated as a slime, Inuyasha, etc.) do not care much for their setting? They both contain characters who are not in any way from the setting they are in. 

Again, I do want to reiterate, if you don't want to have any invariance in your setting, cool. Whats less cool is saying that people who want to have a "not from this world but are now here" do not care about the setting. It's not a fair assumption at all. 




> I want setting designers to take firm stands and produce invariants. And label them as such. If there are load-bearing gods, _say as much._ If there are cultures important to the themes of the setting, _say so_. If there are facts of cosmology or metaphysics that matter, _write them down and stick to them._ Not "well, it can be whatever you want". Because that's not a setting, that's mush.


We just completely disagree here. I don't need nor do I want designers taking a firm stance on invariance. I want them to set up the world and its norms. It's not their job to tell players or DM's how they might change that world.

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## MadBear

> To return to the original topic, what are your thoughts on the "WotC will increase the monetization of D&D"? I don't think they will increase the book rate (unlike what they did in MtG) and the book value has been declining in my opinion (The Spelljammer books were not worth it to this Spelljammer fan). They will try to increase monetization somehow. I am not sure it will be something valuable or if it will be anti consumer instead.


I'm definitely concerned about this idea of them "increasing the monetization of D&D". If I'm trying to be positive, I'm hoping that means they'll find ways that increase the player base and make the game more accessible for more people, thus increasing their profits. However, I'm more then a bit nervous they'll be doing a push that is analogous to gaming "lootboxes" designed to pull as much money for a little work as possible. On the bright side, I'm overall happy with the direction of oneD&D, but time will tell as they continue to work and get feedback on the subject.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> So again, your talking about the setting and I'm talking about the players. To easily show that youre point that disregarding invariants means you don't care about the setting, I'd ask this:  
> 
> Does this mean works like John Carter, Isekai anime (That time I was reincarnated as a slime, Inuyasha, etc.) do not care much for their setting? They both contain characters who are not in any way from the setting they are in. 
> 
> Again, I do want to reiterate, if you don't want to have any invariance in your setting, cool. Whats less cool is saying that people who want to have a "not from this world but are now here" do not care about the setting. It's not a fair assumption at all.


In those settings, having those characters doesn't violate any invariants. Because those settings were designed with that as a core part of them. So no. Because you're not ignoring any invariants. However, those are settings that I don't particularly like _for other reasons_ (in large part the results of their invariants).

Invariants are what makes the setting itself. If you change the invariants, you end up with a different setting. For example, "Dark Sun but it's a garden world" _isn't Dark Sun_. So yes, disregarding the invariants _does, inherently_ mean you want a different setting and that you don't care about the setting you're changing. Because otherwise you wouldn't be changing it in a fundamental way. Which is, definitionally, what disregarding invariants does.




> We just completely disagree here. I don't need nor do I want designers taking a firm stance on invariance. I want them to set up the world and its norms. It's not their job to tell players or DM's how they might change that world.


*All* settings have invariants. They _have_ to have invariants, because otherwise they're not distinct settings. They're just mush. In order to set up a world and its norms _well_ (ie produce something that coheres to itself and has depth), you _must_ declare some things as important facts on the ground. But-for causes. Load bearing elements. Changing those inherently changes the setting into something else.

Refusing to engage with invariants means you just have paper settings. Refusing to consider what parts of your house are load bearing nets you collapsed houses.

----------


## MadBear

> In those settings, having those characters doesn't violate any invariants. Because those settings were designed with that as a core part of them. So no. Because you're not ignoring any invariants. However, those are settings that I don't particularly like _for other reasons_ (in large part the results of their invariants).
> 
> Invariants are what makes the setting itself. If you change the invariants, you end up with a different setting. For example, "Dark Sun but it's a garden world" _isn't Dark Sun_. So yes, disregarding the invariants _does, inherently_ mean you want a different setting and that you don't care about the setting you're changing. Because otherwise you wouldn't be changing it in a fundamental way. Which is, definitionally, what disregarding invariants does.


First. No those shows protagonists are not core to the setting, in fact they are specifically meant to be outworlders from other worlds (and their both fine C/B shows/books/movies, I'm not saying they're the pinnacle of storytelling). I'm using them specifically as a point of reference for how a player might want to introduce a non-natural character to a setting. 





> *All* settings have invariants. They _have_ to have invariants, because otherwise they're not distinct settings. They're just mush. In order to set up a world and its norms _well_ (ie produce something that coheres to itself and has depth), you _must_ declare some things as important facts on the ground. But-for causes. Load bearing elements. Changing those inherently changes the setting into something else.
> 
> Refusing to engage with invariants means you just have paper settings. Refusing to consider what parts of your house are load bearing nets you collapsed houses.


again, you keep talking about world building, and I'm talking about what players are allowed to bring to a table with DM permission. I keep bring up outworlder shows as an example of a world with concrete rules, and pointing out that the protagonist often can be an exception (in fact that's kinda the point, so that the player learns the setting at the same time the character is). To try to find common ground, I do agree a setting that said "This world is dying, but whatever if you want to have a green world instead go for it" would be awful world building. What is an example of a load baring invariable element that you think is being degraded in D&D right now?

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> First. No those shows protagonists are not core to the setting, in fact they are specifically meant to be outworlders from other worlds (and their both fine C/B shows/books/movies, I'm not saying they're the pinnacle of storytelling). I'm using them specifically as a point of reference for how a player might want to introduce a non-natural character to a setting.


But that's not a _player_ introducing a non-natural character. That's _the designers deciding that this character is part of the world and doing the work to make it so_. Those isekai settings explicitly include rules for how that works. So in that case, they _are_ a natural part of the setting _as designed_. Just not from the point of view of the residents. And that can work




> again, you keep talking about world building, and I'm talking about what players are allowed to bring to a table with DM permission. I keep bring up outworlder shows as an example of a world with concrete rules, and pointing out that the protagonist often can be an exception (in fact that's kinda the point, so that the player learns the setting at the same time the character is). To try to find common ground, I do agree a setting that said "This world is dying, but whatever if you want to have a green world instead go for it" would be awful world building. What is an example of a load baring invariable element that you think is being degraded in D&D right now?


Worldbuilding is entirely the point. If a player says "screw your worldbuilding, I want to be a special snowflake", that's a red flag for me _as a player or as a DM_. Because that's protagonist syndrome, and that never goes well. It says "I want the story to be all about me, screw you guys." Which is exactly what those isekai fiction do (by definition)--the story is entirely about that one character and their interactions. I find that to be inappropriate for _group, collaborative_ fiction. Because there is no "viewpoint character".

Tropes that work in authored fiction don't necessarily work in TTRPGs. Different media, different constraints.

------

As to load bearing invariants being degraded--take Eberron. One of the core elements there is that the gods are mysteries. Do they exist? No one knows for sure. By shoehorning it into the Multiverse and demanding that those same gods (especially the racial ones) played exactly the same role everywhere and that the same planes are everywhere (which they've done), you've shattered that. Now someone from Eberron can Planeshift and go talk to Moradin or Correllon. They're there, they're identifiable people, and they had fixed roles in the creation of those races.

To me, that (and similar effects from forcing the Great Wheel onto everything) destroys Eberron entirely. It's now just "slightly-magitech Forgotten Realms". 

------

As to the original topic, I expect to see more "DLC"-like content like what they've done with Dragonlance--Want mass combat rules? Buy our board game! And if you do, players get free (powerful, including a legendary) magic items! They're not tied to anything in the story, but the board game says "hey, if you're playing the adventure, give your players these items."

I expect to see more customer-hostile piecemealing of information and fewer ways of (digitally) sharing information. SO instead of "one person buys a $49.99 book and a D&D Beyond subscription, everyone can use it in the campaign", it'll be "one person buys a $49.99 book and _everyone_ buys a subscription." Or "you can share the rules, but you have to buy it yourself to get access to it in a character builder." Or other such things.

----------


## Psyren

> So again, your talking about the setting and I'm talking about the players.





> I'm using them specifically as a point of reference for how a player might want to introduce a non-natural character to a setting.





> again, you keep talking about world building, and I'm talking about what players are allowed to bring to a table with DM permission. I keep bring up outworlder shows as an example of a world with concrete rules, and pointing out that the protagonist often can be an exception (in fact that's kinda the point, so that the player learns the setting at the same time the character is).


PhoenixPhyre, I'm highlighting these because I feel you are repeatedly talking past MadBear instead of engaging with his actual point. Yes, settings should have static elements and pillars that the players can't simply disregard. Nobody is disagreeing with that. Where we disagree with you is on the belief that a DM's willingness to allow any non-native player option for use by a PC adventurer in that setting, means the DM must somehow not care about the setting. If that's not what you're saying, please clarify.

And a player saying "screw you" to their DM about anything should not be welcome at that table.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> PhoenixPhyre, I'm highlighting these because I feel you are repeatedly talking past MadBear instead of engaging with his actual point. Yes, settings should have static elements and pillars that the players can't simply disregard. Nobody is disagreeing with that. *Where we disagree with you is on the belief that a DM's willingness to allow any non-native player option for use by a PC adventurer in that setting, means the DM must somehow not care about the setting.* If that's not what you're saying, please clarify.
> 
> And a player saying "screw you" to their DM about anything should not be welcome at that table.


No. You're generalizing past my point, turning a statement of my personal preferences into a global statement of moral culpability.

My point is
a) assuming that the setting has a declared invariant
b) and the DM _or another player_ decides that that invariant isn't important and disregards it, _especially_ in an ad hoc, careless manner
THEN
*) I will more likely than not not enjoy playing in that campaign _because_ this is evidence there is a high probability that the DM and other players aren't concerned with setting integrity in the same way that I am. And since setting integrity matters a lot to me, I will struggle to stay involved and interested at such tables.

And specifically, when I said "unambiguously" about this, it was in the context of responding to someone who had said that if a DM _doesn't care about the invariants_ or even _takes glee in breaking them_, then does that mean that the DM doesn't care about the setting. For me, the invariants _define_ the setting. So not caring about the invariants or taking glee in breaking them (which is even more emphatic disagreement) is definitionally a lack of care for the setting, as defined by its invariants. In _that specific case_, I can say that yes, that particular DM has shown that they do not care for the setting.

Note that this is *emphatically not* saying that such DMs or players are wrong, bad, inappropriate, or anything else *other* than that I've learned that I, personally, will very likely not enjoy playing at those tables. That there is a mismatch between what _I_ consider fun and what they consider fun. This is not an accusation, an attack, or even a declaration that they can't or shouldn't do that. Merely that I, personally, do not enjoy when that happens.

And there's lots of ways to say "screw you" without actually using those words. And to me, insisting that they be allowed to play something outside the setting document is exactly that--it's a declaration that to them, their character concept is the important thing and they want to be catered to at the expense of the setting and everyone else who may disagree. And that's an attitude I don't want to deal with. I am more than happy to negotiate about ways to bring their concept to life _within the constraints of the setting_ and with a proper fit. Even to the level of homebrewing something that hits the important notes but has a known place in the setting. Done that several times. What I disagree with is the idea that not simply saying "yes, of course you can bring anything you want" is somehow being anti-fun or oppressive or wanting to control players' actions.

Edit: But this is off topic and I'll stop talking about this particular thing in this topic now.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Worldbuilding is entirely the point. If a player says "screw your worldbuilding, I want to be a special snowflake", that's a red flag for me _as a player or as a DM_. Because that's protagonist syndrome, and that never goes well.


 I am not PhoenixPhyre...but it's a flag for me as well.  World building is a key part of the TTRPG hobby.  
*Spoiler: About whale hunting*
Show




> As to the original topic, I expect to see more "DLC"-like content like what they've done with Dragonlance--Want mass combat rules? Buy our board game! And if you do, players get free (powerful, including a legendary) magic items! They're not tied to anything in the story, but the board game says "hey, if you're playing the adventure, give your players these items."
> 
> I expect to see more customer-hostile piecemealing of information and fewer ways of (digitally) sharing information. SO instead of "one person buys a $49.99 book and a D&D Beyond subscription, everyone can use it in the campaign", it'll be "one person buys a $49.99 book and _everyone_ buys a subscription." Or "you can share the rules, but you have to buy it yourself to get access to it in a character builder." Or other such things.



 Likely, given Hasbro/WoTC's past performance.

----------


## Gignere

> I am not PhoenixPhyre...but it's a flag for me as well.  World building is a key part of the TTRPG hobby.  
>  Likely, given Hasbro/WoTC's past performance.


If you believe in the forecast strongly then short their stock. You can make a killing.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> If you believe in the forecast strongly then short their stock. You can make a killing.


The market can stay irrational much longer than I (or any individual investor) can stay solvent.

----------


## Psyren

> No. You're generalizing past my point, turning a statement of my personal preferences into a global statement of moral culpability.
> 
> My point is
> a) assuming that the setting has a declared invariant
> b) and the DM _or another player_ decides that that invariant isn't important and disregards it, _especially_ in an ad hoc, careless manner
> THEN
> *) I will more likely than not not enjoy playing in that campaign _because_ this is evidence there is a high probability that the DM and other players aren't concerned with setting integrity in the same way that I am. And since setting integrity matters a lot to me, I will struggle to stay involved and interested at such tables.


Who decides what is a "declared invariant?" You? Because clearly the people who own the settings in question are _declaring_ that multiversal playable races are NOT "declared invariants." So what you're complaining about has nothing to do with what WotC is actually doing.

Also, because I forgot to challenge you on this earlier, on what earthly basis are you declaring that Spelljammer and Planescape were unsuccessful settings? Clearly they were successful enough to be revisited in 2022 and 2023.

----------


## Sigreid

> Who decides what is a "declared invariant?" You? Because clearly the people who own the settings in question are _declaring_ that multiversal playable races are NOT "declared invariants." So what you're complaining about has nothing to do with what WotC is actually doing.
> 
> Also, because I forgot to challenge you on this earlier, on what earthly basis are you declaring that Spelljammer and Planescape were unsuccessful settings? Clearly they were successful enough to be revisited in 2022 and 2023.


Yep, WoTC bought the rights to these settings and surprise, surprise some people think the current caretakers of these settings (that they had nothing to do with their creation or legacy popularity) are wrecking them by mot sticking to the established setting rules and lore.  Color me surprised.

----------


## Psyren

> Yep, WoTC bought the rights to these settings and surprise, surprise some people think the current caretakers of these settings (that they had nothing to do with their creation or legacy popularity) are wrecking them by mot sticking to the established setting rules and lore.  Color me surprised.


"Sticking to established rules" is only worthwhile when those rules serve a purpose. 'It's good because it's old' is a fallacy for a reason, and 'past audiences like it' means less than nothing when _current_ audiences are what they're responsible for attracting. If you want settings like Dragonlance to stay static so badly, your old books haven't gone anywhere.

----------


## Atranen

> "Sticking to established rules" is only worthwhile when those rules serve a purpose. 'It's good because it's old' is a fallacy for a reason, and 'past audiences like it' means less than nothing when _current_ audiences are what they're responsible for attracting. If you want settings like Dragonlance to stay static so badly, your old books haven't gone anywhere.


"Someone bought it and therefore their interpretation is correct and anyone who disagrees is wrong" is just as fallacious.

----------


## Brookshw

@Pheonix, have you ever looked at the Midgard setting from Kobold Press? I suspect it might be closer to your expectations than anything WoTC is putting out.

----------


## Psyren

> "Someone bought it and therefore their interpretation is correct and anyone who disagrees is wrong" is just as fallacious.


No, it's not wrong to say that someone wanting to cling to an old interpretation _because_ it's old is not a good enough reason to keep it.

Whereas I can point to actual reasons beyond rose-tinted goggles to support changes they made like leaving Gully Dwarves out of the book, or making nonstandard races possible to play in Krynn. And that's just the DL example.

----------


## Atranen

> No, it's not wrong to say that someone wanting to cling to an old interpretation _because_ it's old is not a good enough reason to keep it.


I didn't say that. I said it is wrong to say that someone bought something and changed it and therefore that interpretation is correct.

----------


## Psyren

> I didn't say that. I said it is wrong to say that someone bought something and changed it and therefore that interpretation is correct.


I just told you that I have actual reasons to believe their changes are justified. I said it in the part you omitted.

----------


## Atranen

> I just told you that I have actual reasons to believe their changes are justified. I said it in the part you omitted.


And PhoenixPhyre mentioned reasons why the changes were bad that went beyond 'old is good'.

----------


## Sigreid

> I just told you that I have actual reasons to believe their changes are justified. I said it in the part you omitted.


And nobody has to believe the changes are for the better.  While some changes do, in fact; have a concrete change to the basic premise of the setting.  Regardless of how you feel about a changes and the reasons for them, the setting is no longer the setting that drew in the initial fanbase.  It's really not surprising that there are going to be people, and not just older people; who think "this isn't the setting that I loved anymore.

Honestly, I think the appetite for change really seems to depend mostly on how you feel about an assortment of topics not to be discussed.  But most of what I have seen seems to me personally as them just stripping away the bits that made some settings unique and replacing it with little or nothing in the hopes everyone joins hands and sings "it's a small multiverse after all".

----------


## Psyren

> And PhoenixPhyre mentioned reasons why the changes were bad that went beyond 'old is good'.


No, he didn't. "Declared invariants" are exactly that, it's-established-in-the-past-and-therefore-inviolate. 




> Regardless of how you feel about a changes and the reasons for them, the setting is no longer the setting that drew in the initial fanbase.


And that's fine - the "initial fanbase" for Dragonlance (or any setting for that matter) is an audience that can only ever shrink. "Initial" refers to a static point in time that every progressive year puts us further away from.

----------


## Sigreid

> No, he didn't. "Declared invariants" are exactly that, it's-established-in-the-past-and-therefore-inviolate. 
> 
> 
> 
> Good. The "initial fanbase" for Dragonlance are, what, pushing 60? 70?


I know quite a few fans of the books in their 20's.  But nice to know you're agist. :P

----------


## Atranen

> No, he didn't. "Declared invariants" are exactly that, it's-established-in-the-past-and-therefore-inviolate.


There was much more to the argument than that. 

If I replaced Forgotten Realms with a single sentence saying 'you, the DM, can make up whatever you want, we're done here', could anyone make an objection you couldn't reject on precisely the same grounds?




> Good. The "initial fanbase" for Dragonlance are, what, pushing 60? 70?


That's callous and insulting.

----------


## Psyren

> There was much more to the argument than that. 
> 
> If I replaced Forgotten Realms with a single sentence saying 'you, the DM, can make up whatever you want, we're done here', could anyone make an objection you couldn't reject on precisely the same grounds?


Obviously if anyone released a one-line/one-sentence setting for D&D I would be against that. That's never going to happen.




> I know quite a few fans of the books in their 20's.  But nice to know you're agist. :P


I'm not, my focus is purely numerical. Chasing the "initial fanbase" is a demographic that can only shrink; given that time is linear, that's what "initial" generally means. You can't have more initials of anything. Thus additions and changes are required.

----------


## Atranen

> Obviously if anyone released a one-line/one-sentence setting for D&D I would be against that. That's never going to happen.


Why would it be a bad thing?




> I'm not, my focus is purely numerical. Chasing the "initial fanbase" is a demographic that can only shrink; given that time is linear, that's what "initial" generally means. You can't have more initials of anything. Thus additions and changes are required.


That's why you said 'good, the initial fanbase is small and they can reach new fans by changing things', right?

----------


## Psyren

> Why would it be a bad thing?


It wouldn't, if someone is willing to pay for that they are free to do so. I'd be against a one-sentence-setting for my own preferences.




> That's why you said 'good, the initial fanbase is small and they can reach new fans by changing things', right?


I agree with that sentiment, yes.

----------


## Atranen

> It wouldn't, if someone is willing to pay for that they are free to do so. I'd be against a one-sentence-setting for my own preferences.


What do you dislike about it?

----------


## Psyren

> What do you dislike about it?


Why do I want more that one sentence of content in a release? Because I want more content. I've never been against that.

----------


## Atranen

> Why do I want more that one sentence of content in a release? Because I want more content. I've never been against that.


So long as that content doesn't say anything too precise about how the world runs, apparently  :Small Yuk: 




> _Your_ narrative and its contents are not WotC's job.


You said it best, I think.

----------


## Psyren

> So long as that content doesn't say anything too precise about how the world runs, apparently


I view the level of precision you seem to want as being too restrictive, yes.




> You said it best, I think.


Thank you.

----------


## Sigreid

> Obviously if anyone released a one-line/one-sentence setting for D&D I would be against that. That's never going to happen.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not, my focus is purely numerical. Chasing the "initial fanbase" is a demographic that can only shrink; given that time is linear, that's what "initial" generally means. You can't have more initials of anything. Thus additions and changes are required.


You're aware that classics are classics because they contain universal connections to the human condition that cross generations?  That's literally what something being a classic means.

Either way, your arguments are consistently just being dismissive of everything that ever came before, so I think our conversations have come to an end.

----------


## Psyren

> You're aware that classics are classics because they contain universal connections to the human condition that cross generations?  That's literally what something being a classic means.


I don't deny this kind of remembrance/nostalgia has appeal. But it's not enough to base a current/ongoing business on. Evolution is just as important to the human condition, in my opinion even moreso.

----------


## Atranen

> I view the level of precision you seem to want as being too restrictive, yes.


The reason I'm following this line of reasoning is to demonstrate a point about your argument; it is not a generalizeable 'more permissive and more mushy is always good'. Rather, you (like everyone else in this thread) have a preferred level of setting detail and that necessarily includes details that to some extent proscribe the options available to players. We should realize that what we have here are different preferences, and that other preferences are legitimate, and people who have those shouldn't be dismissed as 'wearing rose-tinted goggles' or 'too old to complete the training'.




> I don't deny this kind of remembrance/nostalgia has appeal. But it's not enough to base a current/ongoing business on. Evolution is just as important to the human condition, in my opinion even moreso.


You're also jumping between the "this is what I prefer WOTC do" and "this is what is good for their business". The latter seems much harder to prove.

----------


## Psyren

> The reason I'm following this line of reasoning is to demonstrate a point about your argument; it is not a generalizeable 'more permissive and more mushy is always good'. Rather, you (like everyone else in this thread) have a preferred level of setting detail and that necessarily includes details that to some extent proscribe the options available to players. We should realize that what we have here are different preferences, and that other preferences are legitimate, and people who have those shouldn't be dismissed as 'wearing rose-tinted goggles' or 'too old to complete the training'.


I'm open to a good reason to not change a setting, but "the initial fanbase would prefer that it remain unchanged" is not remotely good enough. And I never said anyone was too old to complete anything, much less "training."




> You're also jumping between the "this is what I prefer WOTC do" and "this is what is good for their business". The latter seems much harder to prove.


I view these two as, if not one and the same, at least aligned. This shouldn't be too surprising, but I have a vested interest in WotC being successful. That will mean more 5e as well as 1DnD, helmed by the current design team.

----------


## Atranen

> I'm open to a good reason to not change a setting, but "the initial fanbase would prefer that it remain unchanged" is not remotely good enough. And I never said anyone was too old to complete anything, much less "training."


Many reasons beyond that were given. 




> I view these two as, if not one and the same, at least aligned. This shouldn't be too surprising, but I have a vested interest in WotC being successful. That will mean more 5e as well as 1DnD, helmed by the current design team.


But that puts you further in the hole--because how do you know what is good for their business? It's much easier to say what you want.

----------


## Psyren

> Many reasons beyond that were given.


So you've said. 




> But that puts you further in the hole--because how do you know what is good for their business? It's much easier to say what you want.


It's pretty logical to conclude that a strategy that enables people to combine more of their products is more lucrative than one that excludes them, no? That's the Doylist justification for a multiverse in nearly any medium.

----------


## Atranen

> It's pretty logical to conclude that a strategy that enables people to combine more of their products is more lucrative than one that excludes them, no? That's the Doylist justification for a multiverse in nearly any medium.


Not necessarily, especially if the combined products are of low quality.

----------


## Psyren

> Not necessarily, especially if the combined products are of low quality.


Your opinion of the material aside, being inclusive has a chance to encourage more purchases, while being exclusionary guarantees there won't be. For example, if the only setting I'm willing to try out is Krynn, and WotC declares that nothing from MPMM can possibly have a place there, I have no reason to buy or even encourage my friends to buy that book. Avoiding that possibility cost them nothing except a single sidebar in the races chapter. It's elementary.

----------


## Atranen

> Your opinion of the material aside, being inclusive has a chance to encourage more purchases, while being exclusionary guarantees there won't be. For example, if the only setting I'm willing to try out is Krynn, and WotC declares that nothing from MPMM can possibly have a place there, I have no reason to buy or even encourage my friends to buy that book. Avoiding that possibility cost them nothing except a single sidebar in the races chapter. It's elementary.


That's a very restricted view of things. The same players can use multiple, mutually exclusive books. At the same time, merging content doesn't have a null effect on the quality of the content. It may or may not improve it. It may or may not make it worse. The idea that it can be considered completely in isolation is false. 

It's fine if we disagree about what is a good business decision. But it is no way self evident or as obvious as you suggest.

----------


## Psyren

> The same players can use multiple, mutually exclusive books.


Sure, I agree. But the cost to not make them mutually exclusive is negligible (again, all it took for DL was a single sidebar) while the upside is potentially tremendous.

Similarly, moviegoers can watch multiple mutually exclusive movies, but connecting them via a cinematic universe increases the chances that someone will watch a movie they might not otherwise be interested in because it might contain content they can connect with the one they are. And this is a medium where crafting a multiverse is exponentially cheaper - it's not like they need multi-movie contracts with actors etc to pull it off.




> At the same time, merging content doesn't have a null effect on the quality of the content. It may or may not improve it. It may or may not make it worse. The idea that it can be considered completely in isolation is false.


I'm not saying there's _never_ any effect (improve, worsen, or neither) - but given that it can go in any direction as you say, there's not much point in me evaluating it one way or another.




> But it is no way self evident or as obvious as you suggest.


If I'm wrong, they're no worse off than if they kept everything separate and exclusionary. But if I'm right, they will encourage crossplay, and thus purchases, that wouldn't have otherwise occurred. I'm not saying you have to agree with me, just demonstrating where I'm coming from and why I'm unlikely to budge.

----------


## Unoriginal

> Why do I want more that one sentence of content in a release? Because I want more content. I've never been against that.


So you are displeased by  the Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse's lore cuts?

----------


## Kane0

If we are talking settings and lore i'd rather have more stuff I can choose to change or ignore rather than less that I have to fill in. After all, i'm paying for the setting and lore, not the absence or gaps in it. If there isnt enough setting and lore and I have to make up as much as i would my own anyway, what am I purchasing exactly?

----------


## Unoriginal

> If we are talking settings and lore i'd rather have more stuff I can choose to change or ignore rather than less that I have to fill in. After all, i'm paying for the setting and lore, not the absence or gaps in it. If there isnt enough setting and lore and I have to make up as much as i would my own anyway, what am I purchasing exactly?


Indeed. 

Even more importantly, disagreeing with the written lore is by itself inspiring and imagination-sparking.

If I don't like a lore entry stating that Maglubiyet destroyed the goblin pantheon, I still get to have a "no, that didn't happen, instead..." starting prompt, instead of just having nothing to work on.

----------


## Segev

While PhoenixFire may dislike this tendency of mine as a player (probably less so when I do it as a DM), this tendency is part of why I agree with his desire for strong and detailed statements about setting and monster lore. I like to come up with those exceptions to the rule, and figure out how to make them make sense in the setting. It led me to design a secretive order of Lawful Evil blaspheming-against-Lolth male assassins who refused to be treated as lesser for their masculinity, and had a strict code against giving away their product for free. Very meticulous and skilled, they will not kill anyone they're not paid to kill. (They will KO things, though.) 

Remove this specific kind of lore to make drow just elves with a paint job, because they can't have any defining lore about how they came about to be different from any other elf, and the impetus to find exceptions or reactions against those strong lore elements that no longer exists goes away.

----------


## JackPhoenix

> Sure, I agree. But the cost to not make them mutually exclusive is negligible (again, all it took for DL was a single sidebar) while the upside is potentially tremendous.


And what if the cost is tremendous (you lose people who were interested in Dragonlance before it was turned into yet another kitchen sink) and the upside is negligible (because new players have enough flavourless mashup settings to buy another one)?

----------


## Gignere

> And what if the cost is tremendous (you lose people who were interested in Dragonlance before it was turned into yet another kitchen sink) and the upside is negligible (because new players have enough flavourless mashup settings to buy another one)?


There are always risks to changes. However no risk equals no returns. If DL doesnt sell because of that one sidebar somehow offending 30+ year DL fans without attracting any new fans Hasbro will change. Thats why it is great to have a free market.

However, my opinion is that they will attract more new players being more inclusive rather than less. As a 30 year DL fan although I wouldnt consider myself diehard, since I prefer the Death Gate cycle over the DL series, I am not at all turned off by the changes to DL at all. I mean a lot of it is just retcon to accommodate new classes and races but thats ok by me.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Good. The "initial fanbase" for Dragonlance are, what, pushing 60? 70?


 You numerancy is faulty.  I was an adult in my 20's when Dragonlance came out, and a lot of D&D players of that era (introduced by Basic/BX etc) were in their teens or were pre teens.  Many of the initial fans of this D&D based product are probably in their _50's and 60's,_ though some will be older as there were plenty of older D&D players who found the DL setting and books appealing when they came out.   

Another wave of DL fans were the ones who came into the game with AD&D 2e (DL was in there) and then another wave who were attracted to DL in 3.x. after WoTC took over. 

DL / Krynn (for all that I find many aspects of the setting unsatisfactory) as a setting set an interesting precedent of the novels/lore/modules/adventures/setting being reasonably well related to each other.  TSR publications succeeded, at least initially.  This was before the deluge of FR material and books (Azure Bonds, Salvatore's stuff for novels, The North or The Vilhon Reach setting material ...)  

Mind you, Barker's _Empire of the Petal Throne_ was years ahead of them, in terms of game/lore/world building, but sadly Prof Barker and TSR had a falling out ... and EPT wasn't D&D proper so the kind of fusion that TSR harnessed with DL didn't happen (at scale) for EPT (although over time more books were published, etc).  



> I'm not, my focus is purely numerical.


 Well, learn numbers better.  :Small Wink:  


> If we are talking settings and lore i'd rather have more stuff I can choose to change or ignore rather than less that I have to fill in. After all, i'm paying for the setting and lore, not the absence or gaps in it. If there isnt enough setting and lore and I have to make up as much as i would my own anyway, what am I purchasing exactly?


 That hammer just hit the nail on the head.  :Small Smile:

----------


## Psyren

> So you are displeased by  the Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse's lore cuts?


I suspect our definitions of "content" differ.




> Many of the initial fans of this D&D based product are probably in their _50's and 60's,_


Thanks for the correction, doesn't change my point. That's not a demographic it makes business sense to chase (to the exclusion of broadening appeal to the newer/growing ones.)




> Another wave of DL fans were the ones who came into the game with AD&D 2e (DL was in there) and then another wave who were attracted to DL in 3.x. after WoTC took over.


Not denying that, but I was speaking about the "initial fanbase" as stated by Sigried.




> And what if the cost is tremendous (you lose people who were interested in Dragonlance before it was turned into yet another kitchen sink) and the upside is negligible (because new players have enough flavourless mashup settings to buy another one)?


Then Dragonlance will fail and WotC will be no worse off than when they didn't do much with it in 3.5. But we can what-if all day, what if suddenly people lose interest in FR and Ravenloft? What if the internet collapses?

----------


## Atranen

> Sure, I agree. But the cost to not make them mutually exclusive is negligible (again, all it took for DL was a single sidebar) while the upside is potentially tremendous.
> 
> ...
> 
> I'm not saying there's _never_ any effect (improve, worsen, or neither) - but given that it can go in any direction as you say, there's not much point in me evaluating it one way or another.


That's absolutely not the implication of what I was saying. "It may make it better or it may make it worse" does not mean it averages out somewhere in the middle, or that we can't tell what it does, or so on. It means that changes to the quality of the product *matter* and you can't ignore them in an analysis. 

If we're just talking about a single sidebar, what is your issue with the one I suggested a few pages ago?




> Or for an intro to an adventure for a home campaign: 
> 
> Species include humans, dwarves, orcs, half-orcs, elves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves. Other species may be present at the discretion of the DM.


Is this such a big lift? How much distance is there between our positions, really? 




> If I'm wrong, they're no worse off than if they kept everything separate and exclusionary. But if I'm right, they will encourage crossplay, and thus purchases, that wouldn't have otherwise occurred. I'm not saying you have to agree with me, just demonstrating where I'm coming from and why I'm unlikely to budge.


But, again, it's in no way obvious they're better off by not having separate things. In fact, the strategy that worked for MtG is based around exclusivity. Only the most recent cards are available for play in standard format, encouraging players to buy the most recent cards if they want to stay viable. 

"The next adventure we release is set in Eberron. Material in the SCAG is for a different setting; if you want Eberron specific options, you'll have to buy the Eberron players guide, available for $9.99". 

This is a different strategy than they've chosen; it may be better, it may be worse. But to tell we'd need more knowledge than a simple assertion that 'of course the thing I like is better business'.

----------


## Psyren

> That's absolutely not the implication of what I was saying. "It may make it better or it may make it worse" does not mean it averages out somewhere in the middle, or that we can't tell what it does, or so on. It means that changes to the quality of the product *matter* and you can't ignore them in an analysis.


If there were an objective measure of "quality" then I wouldn't, but there isn't. The things you think reduce the quality are largely things I disagree on, ergo including that dimension in the discussion gets us nowhere, we just end up stating our preferences.




> If we're just talking about a single sidebar, what is your issue with the one I suggested a few pages ago?
> 
> 
> 
> Is this such a big lift? How much distance is there between our positions, really?


Honestly there may not be, and I don't think that's a big lift either. In fact they did just that for Dragonlance, even going a step further to provide the justification that Krynn was not always a closed system for its entire history, which makes perfect sense. I found that context to be eminently helpful.




> But, again, it's in no way obvious they're better off by not having separate things. In fact, the strategy that worked for MtG is based around exclusivity. Only the most recent cards are available for play in standard format, encouraging players to buy the most recent cards if they want to stay viable.
> 
> "The next adventure we release is set in Eberron. Material in the SCAG is for a different setting; if you want Eberron specific options, you'll have to buy the Eberron players guide, available for $9.99".


MTG is a competitive game; "viability" there is completely inapplicable to D&D. Very little that they are doing to monetize MTG is relevant to D&D. You can in fact play in an Eberron campaign without buying a single Eberron book, the same is not true for MTG. It will always be a specious comparison.

----------


## Atranen

> If there were an objective measure of "quality" then I wouldn't, but there isn't. The things you think reduce the quality are largely things I disagree on, ergo including that dimension in the discussion gets us nowhere, we just end up stating our preferences.


We have access to reasonable proxies, like reviews. I haven't ever seen sales stats. But regardless, even if we can't tell, that doesn't mean it is irrelevant or can be ignored. 

*If* the quality declines as a result of merging into a multiverse, it will have been a bad business decision. Accepting your view, we cannot tell if the quality has declined or not. That does not imply merging into a multiverse is a good (or neutral) business decision. 




> Honestly there may not be, and I don't think that's a big lift either. In fact they did just that for Dragonlance, even going a step further to provide the justification that Krynn was not always a closed system for its entire history, which makes perfect sense. I found that context to be eminently helpful.


Well, let's save ourselves some trouble and note there's a halfway reasonable compromise on the table  :Small Yuk: 




> MTG is a competitive game; "viability" there is completely inapplicable to D&D. Very little that they are doing to monetize MTG is relevant to D&D. You can in fact play in an Eberron campaign without buying a single Eberron book, the same is not true for MTG. It will always be a specious comparison.


There are differences, but it isn't obvious to me that this strategy would be a failure, especially as they move to online integration. If their VTT is that good, and it's a long campaign, and the players guide is relatively cheap, and comes with setting appropriate minis & some themed dice, and gets more players to give you their credit card info for easy checkout in the future...

I don't know, I just don't see "this is obviously bad".

----------


## Psyren

> We have access to reasonable proxies, like reviews. I haven't ever seen sales stats. But regardless, even if we can't tell, that doesn't mean it is irrelevant or can be ignored.


That will just shift the preference argument from the product itself to the veracity/reliability of the review platform / makeup of the aggregator etc. You can't back into objectivity that way, it's just outsourcing your subjective opinion rather than stating it directly. Especially for a niche like TTRPG books that aren't likely to have a significant number of reviews anyway.

For example, I could point out the 4.5/5 stars Spelljammer received on Amazon, or the 4/5 stars Dragonlance received, as "evidence" of their "objective quality"; would me doing that settle the "quality" question for you, or would you go on to point out the flaws you see in that platform and just spawn a secondary argument?




> *If* the quality declines as a result of merging into a multiverse, it will have been a bad business decision.


I'm not seeing "quality" anywhere on their financial statements. Again, I agree it's useful to consider if we can measure it objectively, and if we had a way to do so I'd be happy to.




> Well, let's save ourselves some trouble and note there's a halfway reasonable compromise on the table


You mean the thing they _did?_ Yes, noted, acknowledged, agreed, signed etc. What then is the issue?  :Small Confused: 




> There are differences, but it isn't obvious to me that this strategy would be a failure, especially as they move to online integration. If their VTT is that good, and it's a long campaign, and the players guide is relatively cheap, and comes with setting appropriate minis & some themed dice, and gets more players to give you their credit card info for easy checkout in the future...
> 
> I don't know, I just don't see "this is obviously bad".


I'm still not sure why you're assuming that explicitly exclusive content would drive more sales than content that is usable anywhere. It seems to me that "this is Eberron content, but feel free to repurpose it if you're not playing Eberron" is going to be a bigger draw than "Eberron is standard format, Dragonlance material is illegal!"

The closest they'll come to that are feats like the DL feats that say "prerequisite: Dragonlance Campaign." That's enough covering fire for DM's who don't want Squire of Solamnia in FR, but lightweight enough that the ones who don't care can set that prereq  aside.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Seems to me there are a few issues that may be being conflated when it comes to campaign settings. 

1. Quality- It seems to me that the quality of the latest campaign settings is reduced/not good. Eberron is an example of a robust 5E campaign setting, but the person that created it and is still involved in it had a hand in that. Spelljammer not having information on different types of planets and on ship to ship combat is a huge misstep. The 2E sourcebook had a lot more information about how to run a campaign in space than the 5E book. I havent flipped through Dragonlance but Ive heard similarly that theres a lot left out. Theres this debate about the best edition ever being simple and streamlined, and exactly how simple and streamlined can something be before youre really not putting out any content. 

2. Inclusivity- Buzz words! I happen to agree with Phoenix on this premise. Insisting on playing a race that doesnt exist in the setting seems in poor taste to me. That setting is chosen for a reason. And Isekai is very relevant, in that the focus is this strange being shunted into this mysterious new land. It is totally protagonist syndrome. 

That said, I think a sidebar about how other races could potentially be found in that setting is fine. I think the issue is that some people have such a clear and naked disdain for anything not new and modern and buzz word, that the argument winds up being extremely anti-lore (and ageist). But I think a sidebar doesnt hurt, so long as the setting isnt being warped to say explicitly that yes tabaxi hexblades have always had a kingdom here where they enslave triton warlocks and trade with shadar-Kai samurai. 

3. Monetization - Check out our mass combat rules by purchasing our board game is not a good sign at all. Campaign setting books with reduced lore that requires purchase of some other game to get the most out of it is bad design. I dont even know how this is a question. 

And while were on the topic of ageism and monetization good luck chasing all the young and hip players for all that extra cash they want to take in. We all know young people are so flush with money. Lets kick all the old timers to the curb and chase those giant young whales to balloon Hasbros bottom line into the stratosphere! (On phone, consider this all blue text.)

----------


## Psyren

To clarify, I have nothing against the wishes of older D&D players, and softened my earlier post to that effect. My opinion remains that a dynamic setting makes more business sense than a static one, however.




> Insisting on playing a race that doesnt exist in the setting seems in poor taste to me. That setting is chosen for a reason.


Insisting on _any_ form of/approach to play that your DM is not okay with is in poor taste. That doesn't mean that WotC can't or shouldn't evolve their settings over time, including expanding the races that can exist in said settings specifically, even if doing so would be contrary to the wishes of the initial or legacy fanbase.




> 3. Monetization - Check out our mass combat rules by purchasing our board game is not a good sign at all. Campaign setting books with reduced lore that requires purchase of some other game to get the most out of it is bad design. I dont even know how this is a question.


No one has brought up the board game you mention until right now to my knowledge, so I wasn't aware that there was a question either, nor am I familiar with the content being mentioned. With that said, "buy a separate product for this edtion's mass combat rules" is not unique to 5e either (see 3.5 Heroes of Battle or PF Ultimate Campaign).




> good luck chasing all the young and hip players for all that extra cash they want to take in. We all know young people are so flush with money. Lets kick all the old timers to the curb and chase those giant young whales to balloon Hasbros bottom line into the stratosphere!


Young adult players have less disposable income, it's true (though considerably more than children and teens)  - but they also spend more of what they _do_ have on leisure and hobby pursuits. There's a reason marketers across most industries go after them; this is again not something that is unique to 5e, or even tabletop as a whole.

Moreover, I think you're vastly overestimating the degree to which something like "you can play a Tiefling in Dragonlance if you want" is going to keep a Dragonlance fan, regardless of demo, from purchasing the book.

----------


## Witty Username

Spelljammer does have ship to ship combat, it is just not particularly insightful and the optimal strategy is to close range and use your PC abilities (as a design principle based on the sidebars, not simply analysis of the results).

I would actually use it for airship combat in an Eberron setting, since swashbuckling boarding action fits the action adventure goals of Eberron. I think I would prefer more ship heavy strategies, like cannon fire or such. And I generally think more ships should have Rams and the ones that do should probably do more damage.

----------


## Cheesegear

> I'm not, my focus is purely numerical. Chasing the "initial fanbase" is a demographic that can only shrink; given that time is linear, that's what "initial" generally means. You can't have more initials of anything. Thus additions and changes are required.


I object to your reasoning.

_Lord of the Rings_ is 70 years old, and the Jackon trilogy, 20. The audience is constantly expanding. Forever. This is why _The Rings of Power_ - and other remakes/reboots of other popular franchises make little sense. If you want to expand the audience for something, you just show them the thing that's good. The only reason to remake and/or change things is because you're a business that needs to make a profit. If you make a thing about a character that someone else wrote, you have to pay them creator fees - just change the character entirely but give them the same name and you're golden (that's a trick Hollywood has been using for _a while_, they just say that they're doing something else that makes them look good  :Small Wink: )

For another example from 40K, _Eisenhorn_ is 20 years old. You know what GW doesn't do? ...Remake it. That's right. They reprint the **** out of it every 4-5 years and promote it as one of the single-most popular, well-written 40K series there is. Nobody - nobody - is asking for Eisenhorn to be remade, let alone *ahem* _reiimagined_. If you want to expose a new audience to Eisenhorn, you just give them Eisenhorn.

One of the biggest hurdles of the _The Lion King_ (2019) couldn't get over, was that _The Lion King_ (1994) still exists. We can, actually go back...We have the technology.  :Small Amused: 

This is also how you get kids watching _M*A*S*H_ and _The Addams Family_ and _Get Smart_ in 2022. You just show it to them. Something good - and I mean, _timelessly_-good - is, effectively, timeless in its quality.

If you want the audience for Dragonlance to expand, you just give them the novels. The initial audience for Dragonlance is irrelevant. I didn't pick up _Dragonlance_ until the late-2000s, and yet I did read it, and I love it. I even read the Ogre and Minotaur stuff that _wasn't_ Weiss & Hickman because that's how invested I was...(Also because Knaak is a good writer and Minotaurs are cool-as-****).

Dragonlance is my favourite setting in D&D. I didn't read it 'til I was in my 20s. I am not even close to its initial audience.

----------


## Telesphoros

> Seems to me there are a few issues that may be being conflated when it comes to campaign settings. 
> 
> 1. Quality- It seems to me that the quality of the latest campaign settings is reduced/not good. Eberron is an example of a robust 5E campaign setting, but the person that created it and is still involved in it had a hand in that. Spelljammer not having information on different types of planets and on ship to ship combat is a huge misstep. The 2E sourcebook had a lot more information about how to run a campaign in space than the 5E book. I havent flipped through Dragonlance but Ive heard similarly that theres a lot left out. Theres this debate about the best edition ever being simple and streamlined, and exactly how simple and streamlined can something be before youre really not putting out any content. 
> 
> 2. Inclusivity- Buzz words! I happen to agree with Phoenix on this premise. Insisting on playing a race that doesnt exist in the setting seems in poor taste to me. That setting is chosen for a reason. And Isekai is very relevant, in that the focus is this strange being shunted into this mysterious new land. It is totally protagonist syndrome. 
> 
> That said, I think a sidebar about how other races could potentially be found in that setting is fine. I think the issue is that some people have such a clear and naked disdain for anything not new and modern and buzz word, that the argument winds up being extremely anti-lore (and ageist). But I think a sidebar doesnt hurt, so long as the setting isnt being warped to say explicitly that yes tabaxi hexblades have always had a kingdom here where they enslave triton warlocks and trade with shadar-Kai samurai. 
> 
> 3. Monetization - Check out our mass combat rules by purchasing our board game is not a good sign at all. Campaign setting books with reduced lore that requires purchase of some other game to get the most out of it is bad design. I dont even know how this is a question. 
> ...



1. Agreed on the quality issue as of late. Really wish WotC would give all the original creators a chance to give more input on the settings where possible, like Keith Baker and Matter Mercer do with their settings. 

The only reason I can think of for things like the major cuts of lore in Monsters of the Multiverse is maybe they're going to change major portions of the lore in One D&D (or maybe Planescape collects some of it)? I mean, they already are floating around stuff like the dwarfiest dwarf, gnomiest gnome and halfingest halfling so maybe a lot of that lore doesn't work for D&D anymore. Tieflings are back down to 3 choices from all the ones from Tome of Foes that were just for the Nine Hells. And maybe, just maybe they're going to solidify the lore on Drow and Orcs? It does seem weird that they kept the different subraces of Elf though, and introduced all the options for Goliath. I would have combined High and Wood Elf into the Elfiest Elf and made the Drow, Shadar-Kai, Eladrin and whatnot their own race. They can all still share fey ancestry. And maybe the Goliath options are going to be used for the Giants book and we'll only get the Stone Giant version of Goliath in the OneD&D PHB. Because once again, design has been hit or miss along their stated design goals. 

2. I could go either way with most of the published settings, but then I don't DM any of them (although I did have a Planescape-type campaign that visited a bunch of different settings including published ones... you know, to destroy them of course). Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance have all been shown to exist in the same multiverse and the magic to move around does exist in those settings. And at least in the case of the Realms, SCAG has a section on Class/subclass options to use in other settings. Eberron and Exandria are also very inclusive already and at least in Eberrron's case I know it gives options to place other species into the setting. Up until earlier this year I was in a M:TG campaign that only used the M:TG settings, but it had everything. 

On the other hand for homebrew settings, as a player I would never impose on a DM for something they say isn't available. And be understanding if they've tweaked a published setting to not include something I wanted to play. As a DM, I like creating unique settings with my own cosmologies so if I let the players know there's only certain options available in Session 0, then I'm not going to stray from that. No you can't bring your Shadar-Kai into my Rays of Light campaign since only species without darkvision are allowed. I have, however on a few occasions, asked the players to create a character they really want to play with a bare bones back story. And then made a setting out of the species and info provided and figured out the hows and whys that it all came to be. I do have sympathy for players that play in a homebrew campaign and that one setting is all they ever have a chance to play, so I try to change it up every now and again when I DM. And play lots of other game systems ;) Which if I'm being honest seems like the groups I'm associated with are headed down that road more and more. The end of 2017 up until the end of 2019 there were 5-6 D&D campaigns/one shot nights going. Now there's 2. Maybe, if the M:TG one starts back up and if I ever finish the one I'm working on and start running it after the group opted out of my playtest campaign. 

3. Well if you purchase the Deluxe Edition of Dragonlance it comes with the Board Game! I think WotC is throwing stuff at the wall again here in the runup to OneD&D to see what types of formats and accessories work well and will make money for when OneD&D is released. They released a Ravenloft boxed set. They combined the Tyranny of Dragons Adventure books awhile back and here in January they're releasing it again with the only change being a new cover. Will completionists buy it? Probably. They've been doing slipcases, first for rulebooks and now for settings. Seems to be doing really well, especially in the case of the Supplemental Rules slipcase with Xanathar's, Tasha's and Monsters of the Multiverse. It's still usually in the top 10 D&D books on Amazon's Bestsellers, whereas the solo Monsters of the Multiverse book hangs around #70. Yikes.

I think I remember reading some stats that it's something like 13% of people 40+ play D&D. Not a very big part of the market to be sure, but I have noticed a lot of 40+ people are DMs (the ones paying the most money) and/or play with their younger children. So while at first glance it doesn't seem like much, in the long run I think it would be best if WotC tried to encompass more of their playerbase.

----------


## Envyus

I dont think new Dragonlance is at all a kitchen sink setting, not anymore than it used to be. The adventure is solid too.

----------


## Psyren

> _Lord of the Rings_ is 70 years old, and the Jackon trilogy, 20. The audience is constantly expanding. Forever.


Yeah and they've been *evolving it,* long before Rings of Power. Even the Jackson Trilogy _you just cited_ did so. Arwen Warrior Princess anyone? Tom Bombadil who? Thanks for proving my point?




> 1. Agreed on the quality issue as of late. Really wish WotC would give all the original creators a chance to give more input on the settings where possible, like Keith Baker and Matter Mercer do with their settings.


Given what Tracy Hickman was up to on Twitter, maybe not.




> On the other hand for homebrew settings, as a player I would never impose on a DM for something they say isn't available.


Literally no one is advocating that anyone impose on their DM.




> And be understanding if they've tweaked a published setting to not include something I wanted to play. As a DM, I like creating unique settings with my own cosmologies so if I let the players know there's only certain options available in Session 0, then I'm not going to stray from that. No you can't bring your Shadar-Kai into my Rays of Light campaign since only species without darkvision are allowed.


Nobody at WotC is altering anyone's custom settings either.

----------


## Telesphoros

> Given what Tracy Hickman was up to on Twitter, maybe not.
> 
> 
> 
> Literally no one is advocating that anyone impose on their DM.
> 
> 
> 
> Nobody at WotC is altering anyone's custom settings either.




1. Methinks you got the wrong Tracy Hickman's twitter. Feel free to DM me if I missed something.

2. Not what I said. I wasn't advocating for anything of the sort. 

3. Didn't say that either. Where did you get that from?


2&3. I was referring to all the talk of players wanting to play character types not included in a setting, also both as a player myself and as a DM for my own homebrew settings.

----------


## Psyren

> 1. Methinks you got the wrong Tracy Hickman's twitter. Feel free to DM me if I missed something.


No, I know who Tracy Hickman is. Google "Tracy Hickman tone deaf."




> 2. Not what I said. I wasn't advocating for anything of the sort.
> 
> 3. Didn't say that either. Where did you get that from?


You misunderstand, I wasn't saying _you_ were in favor of these things. I was saying that nothing WotC is doing is _encouraging_ these. They are neither encouraging players to impose on their DMs, nor to demand to play races that the DM has banned. They are helping to open up options, not overriding DM wishes.

----------


## Telesphoros

> No, I know who Tracy Hickman is. Google "Tracy Hickman tone deaf."
> 
> 
> 
> You misunderstand, I wasn't saying _you_ were in favor of these things. I was saying that nothing WotC is doing is _encouraging_ these. They are neither encouraging players to impose on their DMs, nor to demand to play races that the DM has banned. They are helping to open up options, not overriding DM wishes.


Yikes, that isn't going to age well for TH. 

Ah, I did in fact misunderstand. There are more species, ancestries, and legacies nowadays than when we last saw many of these old settings, so I think it's pretty natural to have more of them included in the new renderings of those settings.

----------


## Cheesegear

> Arwen Warrior Princess anyone? Tom Bombadil who? Thanks for proving my point?


Do those significantly change the tone, setting or circumstances of the story? Not even a little. Those are actually perfect examples of what to change and what to cut. That's why Jackson's trilogy stands out among all of the others. Yes, actually. They _did_ change the material in certain places, and yet no-one complained.

I can't think of very many other examples.

----------


## Psyren

> Do those significantly change the tone, setting or circumstances of the story? Not even a little. Those are actually perfect examples of what to change and what to cut. That's why Jackson's trilogy stands out among all of the others. Yes, actually. They _did_ change the material in certain places, and yet no-one complained.
> 
> I can't think of very many other examples.


1) So now the goalposts have shifted from "no changes, just show them the good thing and the audience will expand forever," to "changes are okay as long they don't _significantly_ change the tone, setting, or circumstances of the story." And the arbiter of what counts as a _significant_ change is none other than yourself, no doubt.

2) "No one complained?"  :Small Confused:  Message boards were much less unbiquitous when those movies came out, but there were plenty of complaints from Tolkien fans over Peter Jackson's creative choices - Tom Bombadil getting dropped, comic-relief Gimli, Jerk Faramir, No Glorfindel, the weird bashing of Frodo and Sam's relationship (which was so widespread it even made it into the TBS network's official marketing) - and yes, there were complaints about Arwen being upgraded to an action hero too. Peter Jackson's trilogy wasn't immune from backlash, it just had fewer places to spread and ultimately got overridden by him pulling off what had been seen as impossible up to that point.

----------


## Brookshw

> 2) "No one complained?"  Message boards were much less unbiquitous when those movies came out, but there were plenty of complaints from Tolkien fans over Peter Jackson's creative choices - Tom Bombadil getting dropped, comic-relief Gimli, Jerk Faramir, No Glorfindel, the weird bashing of Frodo and Sam's relationship (which was so widespread it even made it into the TBS network's official marketing) - and yes, there were complaints about Arwen being upgraded to an action hero too. Peter Jackson's trilogy wasn't immune from backlash, it just had fewer places to spread and ultimately got overridden by him pulling off what had been seen as impossible up to that point.


Now imagine how much more annoyed people would have been if the joining of the fellowship had gone "you have my pseudopod", "and my wings", "and my crocodile head".

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> To clarify, I have nothing against the wishes of older D&D players, and softened my earlier post to that effect. My opinion remains that a dynamic setting makes more business sense than a static one, however.


I think, more to the point, you do not seem to care, at all, about the opinions of older players, period. I think that in arguing these points, you are proving our point. Because, after everything is said and done, your position is "I don't care what you think, the priority should be profit and newness". Which is exactly what people are concerned with. Exactly what will they toss out and what will they change in the name of profit and newness.

There is no middle approach here. You can quote me and say "yeah, I think profit is important for a business, sue me", but that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that so long as it "makes good business sense" and "chases after new players" you're okay with it, and to the Nine with what anyone else thinks. That's the concern, and you're proving the point. If WotC is in alignment with you as much as you seem to think they are, then there's a lot to be worried about. 



> That doesn't mean that WotC can't or shouldn't evolve their settings over time, including expanding the races that can exist in said settings specifically, even if doing so would be contrary to the wishes of the initial or legacy fanbase.


Lol, "evolve".

You take it for granted that the settings "should" "evolve", because you take it for granted that players "require" the ability to play literally anything. Meanwhile, WotC has a couple of settings already that are kitchen sink settings, and that's not even including Spelljammer and Planescape. And yet for some reason ALL settings have to be this.



> No one has brought up the board game you mention until right now to my knowledge, so I wasn't aware that there was a question either, nor am I familiar with the content being mentioned. With that said, "buy a separate product for this edtion's mass combat rules" is not unique to 5e either (see 3.5 Heroes of Battle or PF Ultimate Campaign).


Heroes of Battle and Miniatures Handbook were splatbooks with classes, feats, prestige classes, spells, magic items, etc. as well as rules for mass combat.

A board game is... an entirely different game. They're not the same thing.



> Young adult players have less disposable income, it's true (though considerably more than children and teens)  - but they also spend more of what they _do_ have on leisure and hobby pursuits. There's a reason marketers across most industries go after them; this is again not something that is unique to 5e, or even tabletop as a whole.


You can pursue one without dismissing the other.



> Moreover, I think you're vastly overestimating the degree to which something like "you can play a Tiefling in Dragonlance if you want" is going to keep a Dragonlance fan, regardless of demo, from purchasing the book.


The poor quality is going to keep them from purchasing the book. That's why I delineated the various things we're talking about. On top of watering down the setting lore, the quality is also going down.

And if we're going to talk about people vastly overestimating things, well, we can discuss all the things you seem to think are important above and beyond what legacy players might like.

----------


## Psyren

> I think, more to the point, you do not seem to care, at all, about the opinions of older players, period.


And you'd be utterly wrong to think that for multiple reasons, the most notable being that "older players" are not a monolith. Not all of them are closer to your views than my own. What I _am_ against, unequivocally, is stagnation.

A prominent example of a player I am philosophically aligned with, who has been playing TTRPGs for decades longer than I have, is The Giant himself - there are numerous quotes from him illustrating that, but the one I included in my extended sig is perhaps the most succinct encapsulation of that stance that comes to mind for me.




> You take it for granted that the settings "should" "evolve", because you take it for granted that players "require" the ability to play literally anything. Meanwhile, WotC has a couple of settings already that are kitchen sink settings, and that's not even including Spelljammer and Planescape. And yet for some reason ALL settings have to be this.


A DM who decides to let someone at their table play a Drow in Krynn or a Warforged in Faerun is not going to magically transform those settings/campaigns into Spelljammer or Planescape. Nor does it mean that said DM somehow does not care about what makes these settings special, nor that WotC is wrong for suggesting ways that DM can enable their players' fun.




> You can pursue one without dismissing the other.


In my view, they are. Certainly, WotC are not the ones drawing an "invariant setting purity" line in the sand. They are leaving it up to DMs to be the ones to say yes or no to extra-setting gameplay elements, as they should be.




> The poor quality is going to keep them from purchasing the book. That's why I delineated the various things we're talking about. On top of watering down the setting lore, the quality is also going down.
> 
> And if we're going to talk about people vastly overestimating things, well, we can discuss all the things you seem to think are important above and beyond what legacy players might like.


I keep seeing the "poor quality' line parroted, yet I'm the one who actually provided a review score for these two books, and it was high. Until you have some objective and credible basis for the quality judgement, dismissal is indeed all I can offer it.

----------


## Atranen

> For example, I could point out the 4.5/5 stars Spelljammer received on Amazon, or the 4/5 stars Dragonlance received, as "evidence" of their "objective quality"; would me doing that settle the "quality" question for you, or would you go on to point out the flaws you see in that platform and just spawn a secondary argument?


That seems pretty good evidence that people are enjoying the new setting to me. How does that compare to previous 5e releases? 




> You mean the thing they _did?_ Yes, noted, acknowledged, agreed, signed etc. What then is the issue?


They have done more than that by explicitly connecting worlds to the multiverse, in ways that have been pointed out previously. Also they have not implemented the "common species include" guidance for AL. 




> I'm still not sure why you're assuming that explicitly exclusive content would drive more sales than content that is usable anywhere. It seems to me that "this is Eberron content, but feel free to repurpose it if you're not playing Eberron" is going to be a bigger draw than "Eberron is standard format, Dragonlance material is illegal!"


I'm not assuming that. I'm saying the opposite assumption is nonobvious. 




> I think, more to the point, you do not seem to care, at all, about the opinions of older players, period. I think that in arguing these points, you are proving our point. Because, after everything is said and done, your position is "I don't care what you think, the priority should be profit and newness". Which is exactly what people are concerned with. Exactly what will they toss out and what will they change in the name of profit and newness.


Yep, this all checks out.

----------


## Brookshw

> I keep seeing the "poor quality' line parroted, yet I'm the one who actually provided a review score for these two books, and it was high. Until you have some objective and credible basis for the quality judgement, dismissal is indeed all I can offer it.


They're about the best we have for top level evaluation, but they don't weigh individual aspects for their merits, you need to drill into the comments for that. For example, one verified purchase gives it a 4 and talks about the art, but then dunks on it for actual setting and lore. Also, there's no control group to see what would happen to that release to see if they'd taken a different approach; you can try and compare against other titles, e.g., Ravenloft which went much heavier on setting, for some kind of value, but, again, the rankings aren't based on any kind individual aspects so it's not a simple "which is greater" comparison.

----------


## Psyren

> That seems pretty good evidence that people are enjoying the new setting to me. How does that compare to previous 5e releases?


It's your chosen yardstick, not mine. I'm not particularly interested for the reasons I stated previously, and the information is public.




> They have done more than that by explicitly connecting worlds to the multiverse, in ways that have been pointed out previously. Also they have not implemented the "common species include" guidance for AL.


You mean the guidance found in a Krynn book? Isn't AL a Forgotten Realms format currently?




> Yep, this all checks out.


Addressed.




> They're about the best we have for top level evaluation, but they don't weigh individual aspects for their merits, you need to drill into the comments for that. For example, one verified purchase gives it a 4 and talks about the art, but then dunks on it for actual setting and lore. Also, there's no control group to see what would happen to that release to see if they'd taken a different approach; you can try and compare against other titles, e.g., Ravenloft which went much heavier on setting, for some kind of value, but, again, the rankings aren't based on any kind individual aspects so it's not a simple "which is greater" comparison.


Even in your cherry-picked example, clearly "lore" wasn't enough of a negative to that individual to result in an overall rating lower than 4, so it was a tepid "dunk" at best. And I'd expect the vast majority of reviews to not include comments at all, making it impossible to tell what they thought of any "individual merits."

----------


## Gignere

> That seems pretty good evidence that people are enjoying the new setting to me. How does that compare to previous 5e releases? 
> 
> 
> 
> They have done more than that by explicitly connecting worlds to the multiverse, in ways that have been pointed out previously. Also they have not implemented the "common species include" guidance for AL. 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not assuming that. I'm saying the opposite assumption is nonobvious. 
> ...


However original authors (Weiss and Hickman) already implicitly made DL connected to a multiverse, D&D isnt doing anything contra to the original authors. Specially they had Fizban and Zifnab appear in DL and Death Gate cycle stories. If even the original authors intended Krynn to exist in a multiverse how is D&D laying it out explicitly against the spirit of the original DL?

----------


## Atranen

> You mean the guidance found in a Krynn book? Isn't AL a Forgotten Realms format currently?


I mean saying AL characters in this region are commonly of species X & Y, and Z is rare.

----------


## Brookshw

> Even in your cherry-picked example, clearly "lore" wasn't enough of a negative to that individual to result in an overall rating lower than 4, so it was a tepid "dunk" at best. And I'd expect the vast majority of reviews to not include comments at all, making it impossible to tell what they thought of any "individual merits."


You mean one of the very first reviews? Trust me, I don't care enough about this topic to go cherry picking. Agreed, without comments or some kind of star chart or something that breaks it down by aspects it's pretty hard to look at a number by itself and say "yup, quality". A lot seem to talk about art, so is that the biggest metric for quality? Would a book that was primarily art be better for sales? The numbers by themselves really don't give a great picture on what aspects perform well, which didn't, and where it can be improved (especially without being detrimental to other aspects).

And don't forget, those are the reviews _now_, it averaged below three for the first few weeks on launch, and reception on launch is another quality metric to consider.

----------


## Psyren

> However original authors (Weiss and Hickman) already implicitly made DL connected to a multiverse, D&D isnt doing anything contra to the original authors. Specially they had Fizban and Zifnab appear in DL and Death Gate cycle stories. If even the original authors intended Krynn to exist in a multiverse how is D&D laying it out explicitly against the spirit of the original DL?


Indeed. Not to mention the whole Dalamar / Elminster / Mordenkainen knitting circle thing.




> I mean saying AL characters in this region are commonly of species X & Y, and Z is rare.


Again, not sure why they would need to do that. "Lizardfolk are practically unheard of in {AL campaign region}" won't actually stop anyone from playing a lizardfolk adventurer in AL, nor should it.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> I keep seeing the "poor quality' line parroted, yet I'm the one who actually provided a review score for these two books, and it was high. Until you have some objective and credible basis for the quality judgement, dismissal is indeed all I can offer it.


Yeah yeah yeah. And the 4th edition core books are rated even higher than those two examples, but I still have to listen to all of you talk about how apocalyptic that edition was. 

One of the failings of very smart people is their over-reliance on "metrics" to drown out practical anecdotal data."Shh, shh, settle down pleb. This article here disputes your own lived experience, so you are wrong."

And "dismissal" is all you have offered.

----------


## Psyren

> Yeah yeah yeah. And the 4th edition core books are rated even higher than those two examples, but I still have to listen to all of you talk about how apocalyptic that edition was.


Exactly, reviews are useless as objective measures of a TTRPG book's quality. Glad we agree.




> One of the failings of very smart people is their over-reliance on "metrics" to drown out practical anecdotal data."Shh, shh, settle down pleb. This article here disputes your own lived experience, so you are wrong."


Uh, I'm not the one trying to invoke "metrics" here. In fact I pretty explicitly said that "quality" is subjective rather than objective.




> And "dismissal" is all you have offered.


For the arguments presented thus far, yes, that's correct.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

You literally provided the link to the reviews and referred to them as "credible" and "objective".

And now you say they're not.

Let us know when you hop down on one side of this fence.

----------


## Psyren

> You literally provided the link to the reviews and referred to them as "credible" and "objective".
> 
> And now you say they're not.


I used air quotes for a reason.

----------


## JadedDM

> However original authors (Weiss and Hickman) already implicitly made DL connected to a multiverse, D&D isnt doing anything contra to the original authors. Specially they had Fizban and Zifnab appear in DL and Death Gate cycle stories. If even the original authors intended Krynn to exist in a multiverse how is D&D laying it out explicitly against the spirit of the original DL?


The Deathgate Cycle is not a D&D world.  So how does it being tied to Dragonlance suggest that it was the author's intents to make Dragonlance a part of the D&D multiverse?

(Also, it's worth noting, Dragonlance and Deathgate are not linked as strongly as you think.  Zifnab knows what Dragonlance is, because he knows a lot about ancient Earth pop culture.  Because Zifnab also references Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Star Trek, and Star Wars.  This is because canonically, Deathgate takes place on Earth in the far future.)

----------


## Segev

> The Deathgate Cycle is not a D&D world.  So how does it being tied to Dragonlance suggest that it was the author's intents to make Dragonlance a part of the D&D multiverse?
> 
> (Also, it's worth noting, Dragonlance and Deathgate are not linked as strongly as you think.  Zifnab knows what Dragonlance is, because he knows a lot about ancient Earth pop culture.  Because Zifnab also references Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Star Trek, and Star Wars.  This is because canonically, Deathgate takes place on Earth in the far future.)


Dragonlance, like any other setting that uses D&D-based mechanics, fits neatly into the D&D multiverse via Planescape and Spelljammer. The deathgate cycle...doesn't...but anybody who wants to assume that Zifnab and Fizban are one and the same is well within the hints dropped in the stories to do so. Why he's there? That's his own business, and wizards are subtle and quick to anger. Or mad and quick to irresponsible use of magic. At least one of those.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

On the original topic, this is satire but we all know that we live in a post satire world.

https://the-only-edition.com/wizards...-monetization/

----------


## Brookshw

> Uh, I'm not the one trying to invoke "metrics" here. In fact I pretty explicitly said that "quality" is subjective rather than objective.


Sure, subjectivity is the best measuring stick, but you're arguing DL is quality for addressing gully dwarves while refusing to acknowledge quality issues in SJ despite them creating very similar issues, leading to a public outcry and immediate about face by WoTC. Subjective is one thing, but it's pretty bizarre to see subjectivity without consistency.




> On the original topic, this is satire but we all know that we live in a post satire world.
> 
> https://the-only-edition.com/wizards...-monetization/


lovely.

----------


## Atranen

> Again, not sure why they would need to do that. "Lizardfolk are practically unheard of in {AL campaign region}" won't actually stop anyone from playing a lizardfolk adventurer in AL, nor should it.


Then why not do it?

----------


## Psyren

> Then why not do it?


Why do it?




> Sure, subjectivity is the best measuring stick, but you're arguing DL is quality for addressing gully dwarves while refusing to acknowledge quality issues in SJ despite them creating very similar issues, leading to a public outcry and immediate about face by WoTC. Subjective is one thing, but it's pretty bizarre to see subjectivity without consistency.


I assume you're referring to the Hadozee? Yeah, they made a mistake and corrected it. What's the problem?

----------


## OldTrees1

> On the original topic, this is satire but we all know that we live in a post satire world.
> 
> https://the-only-edition.com/wizards...-monetization/


That is some nice post satire world satire.

Now we just sit back and wait for WotC to release a statement that is worse than the satire.

----------


## Brookshw

> What's the problem?


Good question. Someone asked for basic business advice, got snarky when they received it, now here we are  :Small Confused:  :Small Tongue:

----------


## Atranen

> Why do it?


To add internal consistency to the world and a sense of groundedness to the games.

----------


## Psyren

> Good question. Someone asked for basic business advice, got snarky when they received it, now here we are


Uh, okay  :Small Tongue: 




> To add internal consistency to the world and a sense of groundedness to the games.


Restricting adventurers in the same way as non-adventurers isn't necessary to achieve that.

----------


## JadedDM

> On the original topic, this is satire but we all know that we live in a post satire world.
> 
> https://the-only-edition.com/wizards...-monetization/


The "help players feel a sense of pride and accomplishment" was good, but the part that really got me was "explore every corner of Faerûn, from the top of the Sword Coast to the bottom of the Sword Coast."   :Small Big Grin:

----------


## EggKookoo

Everyone take a deep breath.

----------


## Atranen

> Restricting adventurers in the same way as non-adventurers isn't necessary to achieve that.


It isn't restricting them, as you've said:




> Again, not sure why they would need to do that. "Lizardfolk are practically unheard of in {AL campaign region}" won't actually stop anyone from playing a lizardfolk adventurer in AL, nor should it.


So, again what's the big deal?

----------


## Psyren

> It isn't restricting them, as you've said:
> 
> 
> 
> So, again what's the big deal?


As you've said:




> To add internal consistency to the world and a sense of groundedness to the games.


It doesn't accomplish any of that, so why waste text on it?

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Now imagine how much more annoyed people would have been if the joining of the fellowship had gone "you have my pseudopod", "and my wings", "and my crocodile head".


 That would have seen me leave the theater never to return. 



> Indeed. Not to mention the whole Dalamar / Elminster / Mordenkainen knitting circle thing.


 Gagworthy when it came out, and still gagworthy.  





> The Deathgate Cycle --snip---


 Nice post, man, it's been a while since I read the Deathgate Cycle. Enjoyed it.  



> On the original topic, this is satire but we all know that we live in a post satire world.
> 
> https://the-only-edition.com/wizards...-monetization/


 I think Tyler's comment is spot on.  :Small Cool: 



> Now we just sit back and wait for WotC to release a statement that is worse than the satire.


 Fifty years ago, Dan Jenkins and Bud Shrake wrote a book called _Limo_ that was a satire aimed at the TV industry.  Hilariously, about 20-25 years later, what they had posted as satire  came to life in a TV form that we now call Reality TV.   



> Good question. Someone asked for basic business advice, got snarky when they received it, now here we are


 Ah,  yes, internets.  :Small Cool: 



> Everyone take a deep breath.


 Thank you for that link.  A nicely presented bit, and it took less than 10 minutes.

The tribes are not mutually exclusive. I am able to have dinner at both campfire.  :Small Wink:

----------


## EggKookoo

> Thank you for that link.  A nicely presented bit, and it took less than 10 minutes.
> 
> The tribes are not mutually exclusive. I am able to have dinner at both campfire.


As can I, although I'm firmly in his "folk" category.

----------


## Atranen

> It doesn't accomplish any of that, so why waste text on it?


It does in my opinion, and iirc several others agreed.

----------


## OldTrees1

> Everyone take a deep breath.


I am pretty far on the Folk D&D side as DM & Player, however I recognize creativity is work. I am willing to pay money for tools that reduce the workload and thus let me spend my limited prep time on other areas*. Commercial products of sufficient quality that touch on areas of interest to me are applicable for reducing my workload. As WotC's products stop meeting that use case, then there are fewer available tools for me, and eventually D&D will plateau for me as prep time is consumed on recurring prep costs.

* This is also true for players. Players prepare their characters and seem hesitant to work with the GM to homebrew something because that is extra work for the player. A badly designed official commercial example can be less work to fix than the group coming up with something whole cloth.

This results in a deep breath and a sigh of disappointment, rather than a cry of outrage.

There is also some preemptive schadenfreude laughter as I hope WotC's anti consumer plans fail.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I am pretty far on the Folk D&D side as DM & Player, however I recognize creativity is work. I am willing to pay money for tools that reduce the workload and thus let me spend my limited prep time on other areas*. Commercial products of sufficient quality that touch on areas of interest to me are applicable for reducing my workload. As WotC's products stop meeting that use case, then there are fewer available tools for me, and eventually D&D will plateau for me as prep time is consumed on recurring prep costs.
> 
> * This is also true for players. Players prepare their characters and seem hesitant to work with the GM to homebrew something because that is extra work for the player. A badly designed official commercial example can be less work to fix than the group coming up with something whole cloth.
> 
> This results in a deep breath and a sigh of disappointment, rather than a cry of outrage.
> 
> There is also some preemptive schadenfreude laughter as I hope WotC's anti consumer plans fail.


Count me into this bucket, mostly. Although further along in the "not buying things" cycle and more open to making it myself. I'm not outraged, just...disappointed. Annoyed. But not really surprised.

----------

On another note from  a very similar interview at about the same time with the new head of WotC (https://www.geekwire.com/2022/wizard...tegy-and-more/:

The reporter quoted her as saying (as a direct quote) about the replacement of "race" with "species" (a move that although I don't like 'species', is one that I generally support):




> We do think that this was language that was not necessarily representative of how we think about that term now, and the team felt pretty passionate about finding a replacement. *We dont believe that a characters race predetermines things about them.*


I find that last, bolded (by me) quote to be odd. Assuming the reporter didn't misquote her, that means that either
a) she misspoke/was highly unclear (probably the most reasonable assumption).
b) she and the team have an incredibly _different_ belief about the role of "race/species/whatever" in D&D than, I think, most people do.

Sure, a characters' race doesn't predetermine _everything_ about a character--it never has (in 5e at least). It's just one component. But it should predetermine _some things_. If it doesn't...why have it as a parameter? If it's nothing more than a fortnite skin, a purely cosmetic thing that cannot mean anything in fiction (which is what a literal reading of her statement suggests), then...why have it at all? And I'd say that (on the whole) D&D without "race" (or something basically equivalent) as a meaningful character building element has drifted quite far from what makes D&D, well, D&D. And certainly has _massive_ (and noxious IMO) implications for their intent as to worldbuilding. If race predetermines _nothing_ about a character...

I'm hoping that what she meant was something else (aka option (a)) entirely. But my confidence is not great on that matter.

----------


## AnonymousPepper

More responding to the video here than the thread as a whole (I'm just in here to get a finger on what fellow players are thinking about the WotC kerfluffle rn). 

Not sure where I fit in his dichotomy, really. I and every other group I've ever played in plays with the official books as the core of everything, but freely rule zeroes off of it whenever needed, and incorporating reputable 3PP where appropriate and wanted. The official material is not only not God, it's highly mutable and build-on-able, and only forms the nucleus.

You need those official books as a base onto which you can build your houserules and 3PP, else you may as well just be playing Calvinball. For people who wanna play Calvinball, or a different system, more power to you, but I don't see how you can have _D&D_ without having official content at its core, either de jure or de facto. You can play something kinda similar to D&D, but the core kernel has to be something recognizable and standardized, particularly if you want to be able to then go to a different table and have any idea what's going on.

A scenario into which I think it's _very_ valid to ask, "So what happens if the people who have unfortunately purchased the right to determine what that foundation is then completely bungle the implementation as far as my tastes go?"

The answer to that is why I dropped 4e like a hot potato after two games, and, as a matter of opinion on design philosophy (I'm not a fan of it, but I at least absolutely see the value in it), I've only ever played 5e with the table I'm closest to personally (therefore making the game more about chilling with friends with some dice rolling involved), and thus have stuck with 3.5e and PF1. You can't homebrew 5e's design philosophy so much that it'll be something I really vibe with without it no longer being 5e. Or, in this case, with 1D&D, if WotC makes it in a way that I just dislike, it blocks me off from ever really playing it. You can't homebrew that away, again, without fundamentally changing what it is.

That's not, as he so righteously tried to say, that I base my entire identity off a corporation and a logo. It's that I can't sit down and share the experience of it with friends on any kind of common ground. I will come to that table expecting 1+1 to equal 2 (or 1+1=3, I'm not trying to privilege my opinion here), and they will have a book in front of them that says 1+1=3 (or, again, 2). They'll be having a fun time with 1D&D, and I just won't really be able to enjoy it. So yes, it is in my best interests to have a stake in what form the official book comes out in, and it doesn't make me parasocial for a megacorporation or a brand. 

-

Now, I suppose more relevantly to the thread as a whole, if it also starts paywalling the ever-loving crap out of new stuff, that creates the problem that even if I _wanted_ to I couldn't participate without getting nickel-and-dimed. Again, that doesn't make me a corporate stooge, it just means I want to be able to get in on an experience that will be broadly similar wherever I go, and I now won't be able to.

At least, not legally. This is in no way advocacy for any particular practice, but I highly, highly suspect that WotC will start to see exactly why _acquisitions_ of movies and TV shows dropped off dramatically when it became possible to get them all in one place for a reasonable price, and then crept up as the rest of the media conglomerates started clamoring for their own pieces of the pie. As Gabe Newell said, it's a service problem.  And if the service begins degrading heavily and starts looking like, say, Crusader Kings 2, with requiring _15_ DLC purchases just for adding features, then they're very quickly going to realize they've killed their _other_ golden egg-laying goose, no matter how shiny they make it.

----------


## OldTrees1

> I find that last, bolded (by me) quote to be odd. Assuming the reporter didn't misquote her, that means that either
> a) she misspoke/was highly unclear (probably the most reasonable assumption).
> b) she and the team have an incredibly _different_ belief about the role of "race/species/whatever" in D&D than, I think, most people do.


Let me be optimistic for a moment:
c) There is a middle ground where we view species as having only surmountable impact. Nothing ends up predetermined because humans can fly despite not being born with wings. Kobolds can become telepathic psions despite not being born with telepathy. Dragons can become undead despite not being born undead. Etc. There will be differences, but the impact is surmountable.

I don't know if this 3rd option is what she meant. Option B is quite possible.

I think it could be she was unclear while trying to communicate the game term Species is completely unrelated to the colloquial IRL term Race.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Let me be optimistic for a moment:
> c) There is a middle ground where we view species as having only surmountable impact. Nothing ends up predetermined because humans can fly despite not being born with wings. Kobolds can become telepathic psions despite not being born with telepathy. Dragons can become undead despite not being born undead. Etc. There will be differences, but the impact is surmountable.
> 
> I don't know if this 3rd option is what she meant. Option B is quite possible.


Being human means you're predetermined to start with a feat. Being an elf means you're predetermined to have dark vision. Those are predetermined things. And thus the statement, if taken seriously, means that races cannot provide any mechanical or fictional effects whatsoever, because those would predetermine at least one characteristic of your character.

----------


## OldTrees1

> Being human means you're predetermined to start with a feat. Being an elf means you're predetermined to have dark vision. Those are predetermined things. And thus the statement, if taken seriously, means that races cannot provide any mechanical or fictional effects whatsoever, because those would predetermine at least one characteristic of your character.


I could talk about an Elf PC that does not have darkvision anymore. However that might be going too far to give WotC the benefit of the doubt? On a 2nd and 3rd read of your post, I think she was unclear while trying to communicate the game term Species is completely unrelated to the colloquial IRL term Race. (with maybe a hint of decreasing but not eliminating mechanics from species)

All I know is I like playing things like Mind Flayers, Ghouls, and Myconoids. WotC is not helping me anymore.

----------


## JadedDM

To be honest, that's the direction I think they're taking things, and I've thought that since Tasha's.  To eventually make race entirely cosmetic, like they did alignment.

Whether that's a good or bad thing, though, I'm uncertain.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> To be honest, that's the direction I think they're taking things, and I've thought that since Tasha's.  To eventually make race entirely cosmetic, like they did alignment.
> 
> Whether that's a good or bad thing, though, I'm uncertain.


Very much bad in my mind. Because it's the same as removing it entirely, except with worse world building effects. It's humans in rubber masks with a vengeance. And utterly incoherent.

----------


## Psyren

> It does in my opinion, and iirc several others agreed.


I guess we remain at an impasse then.




> On another note from  a very similar interview at about the same time with the new head of WotC (https://www.geekwire.com/2022/wizard...tegy-and-more/



Thanks for the link. I broadly support most of the things she's saying, particularly these passages:




> What is Wizards strategy going into 2023?
> 
> _Since I got here, it has very much been about inviting more people to the party, and making sure that they found a space where they could express who they are.
> 
> Our games teach that diversity is a strength. D&D in particular will teach you that together, you can overcome tasks, challenges, or an adventure that you wouldnt have been able to on your own.
> 
> When youre playing Magic, youre seeing the diversity of the world, in the characters. You see yourself.
> 
> I love the stories of people playing Dungeons & Dragons and being able to express who they are in that game, which leads them to being able to express who they are in their real life. Were very much cultivating that level of diversity as were inviting players in._
> ...


I find it difficult to imagine how anyone would disagree with these statements.




> The reporter quoted her as saying (as a direct quote) about the replacement of "race" with "species" (a move that although I don't like 'species', is one that I generally support):
> 
> 
> 
> I find that last, bolded (by me) quote to be odd. Assuming the reporter didn't misquote her, that means that either
> a) she misspoke/was highly unclear (probably the most reasonable assumption).
> b) she and the team have an incredibly _different_ belief about the role of "race/species/whatever" in D&D than, I think, most people do.
> 
> Sure, a characters' race doesn't predetermine _everything_ about a character--it never has (in 5e at least). It's just one component. But it should predetermine _some things_. If it doesn't...why have it as a parameter? If it's nothing more than a fortnite skin, a purely cosmetic thing that cannot mean anything in fiction (which is what a literal reading of her statement suggests), then...why have it at all? And I'd say that (on the whole) D&D without "race" (or something basically equivalent) as a meaningful character building element has drifted quite far from what makes D&D, well, D&D. And certainly has _massive_ (and noxious IMO) implications for their intent as to worldbuilding. If race predetermines _nothing_ about a character...
> ...


I think the operative word there is *character*, i.e. player character. Race can predetermine all kinds of things about monsters; PCs meanwhile have free will and can thus play into type, against type, or anything in between. You can play a race/class combo where the race contributes almost nothing to the build if you want, or where the synergy is palpable. You can also play combinations that uphold or undermine the traditions of that race's culture in a given setting or even multiple settings. The important thing is knowing that WotC themselves are not getting in your way.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I think the operative word there is *character*, i.e. player character. Race can predetermine all kinds of things about monsters; PCs meanwhile have free will and can thus play into type, against type, or anything in between. You can play a race/class combo where the race contributes almost nothing to the build if you want, or where the synergy is palpable. You can also play combinations that uphold or undermine the traditions of that race's culture in a given setting or even multiple settings. The important thing is knowing that WotC themselves are not getting in your way.


First, they're all characters. Not just player characters. That's what the C in NPC stands for.

Second...that's equivalent to saying "all PCs are of race PC, no matter what their nominal race is." Which reduces races to just fortnite skins...except worse. Because now it's not a universal thing--you can be a dragonborn and have none of the traits of a dragonborn elsewhere. You can be an elf who doesn't have any elf traits. Yet everyone in fiction has to ignore the fact that you're wearing a chicken costume[1]. Because if you _do_ have any fixed traits or anyone acts differently toward you as part of your racial choice, then that thing is predetermined. Which they said they don't want.

So now _all_ PCs are these weird alien creatures who stand outside the world sheerly and completely and only because they are PCs. That, to me, is the worst case possible.

Or, the statement is utterly vacuous. Because you can do all those things _right now even disregarding Tashas_. Any combination of race and class is more than good enough. Races don't actively get in your way. They never have, because class overpowers all the rest and the base game's expectations are so forgiving. So either it's no change or it's the _worst possible_ change for anyone who actually cares about settings as anything other than paper backdrops for power gamers.

[1] an example from FFXIV, where meme costumes are fairly common yet no one treats you differently. A classic case of ludonarrative dissonance. And one they're treating as an outright _virtue_.

----------


## EggKookoo

> I find it difficult to imagine how anyone would disagree with these statements.


Well, it's not like they're particularly bold or controversial statements. They're mostly group-hug fluff. It's hard to disagree with vapor.

"I think D&D should be a game where people enjoy playing things to the extent that they want to, and in ways they'd like. We think making sure everyone gets a chance to do that is the future." blah blah blah.

For the record, I work in the HR department of a Fortune 500 company. This boilerplate is all the same.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Well, it's not like they're particularly bold or controversial statements. They're mostly group-hug fluff. It's hard to disagree with vapor.
> 
> "I think D&D should be a game where people enjoy playing things to the extent that they want to, and in ways they'd like. We think making sure everyone gets a chance to do that is the future." blah blah blah.
> 
> For the record, I work in the HR department of a Fortune 500 company. This boilerplate is all the same.


Exactly. Boilerplate language AT BEST.

Edit: and the thing about playing against (or with) type is that it requires _that there be a type to play against/for._ And that would break their statement--that would be something predetermined (what is the "type") by race.

----------


## Psyren

> First, they're all characters. Not just player characters. That's what the C in NPC stands for.


Yes, but context matters too. She's not arguing for the importance of diversity among gelatinous cubes and iron golems and pit fiends, she's clearly and explicitly talking about "people playing Dungeons & Dragons" in those quotes - and therefore, _playable_ species.




> Second...that's equivalent to saying "all PCs are of race PC, no matter what their nominal race is." Which reduces races to just fortnite skins...except worse. Because now it's not a universal thing--you can be a dragonborn and have none of the traits of a dragonborn elsewhere. You can be an elf who doesn't have any elf traits. Yet everyone in fiction has to ignore the fact that you're wearing a chicken costume[1]. Because if you _do_ have any fixed traits or anyone acts differently toward you as part of your racial choice, then that thing is predetermined. Which they said they don't want.


PCs _are_ special; that's a default assumption of the D&D game. That doesn't mean they belong to a unique PC race, but it does mean that whatever mores or limitations you apply to nonplayable or background creatures don't have to apply to them.




> So now _all_ PCs are these weird alien creatures who stand outside the world sheerly and completely and only because they are PCs. That, to me, is the worst case possible.


And to me it's the _best_ case. I don't want dwarf sorcerers to be an impossible player combination simply because it's not something you or anyone else thinks dwarves should be "known for." Or to be more precise, I'm okay with a DM deciding it's impossible at _their_ table, I can simply choose to continue ignoring said table, but demanding that it be a WotC-enforced invariant adds an unnecessary hurdle that has a higher chance of affecting me. No thanks.




> Or, the statement is utterly vacuous. Because you can do all those things _right now even disregarding Tashas_. Any combination of race and class is more than good enough. Races don't actively get in your way. They never have, because class overpowers all the rest and the base game's expectations are so forgiving. So either it's no change or it's the _worst possible_ change for anyone who actually cares about settings as anything other than paper backdrops for power gamers.
> 
> [1] an example from FFXIV, where meme costumes are fairly common yet no one treats you differently. A classic case of ludonarrative dissonance. And one they're treating as an outright _virtue_.


If you're acknowledging that lack of this restriction isn't getting in your way as a DM then _what the heck are you fighting for?_ Impose it at your tables, let those who don't want it not have to, continue ignoring AL like you've been doing and _everyone is happy._

As for FF14 and "meme skins," _that_ game doesn't have a DM. _Yours_ does. If you want people to be reacted to in specific ways, _do it._

----------


## EggKookoo

> If you're acknowledging that lack of this restriction isn't getting in your way as a DM then _what the heck are you fighting for?_ Impose it at your tables, let those who don't want it not have to, continue ignoring AL like you've been doing and _everyone is happy._


It's true. WotC will lose these kinds of territorial standoffs because in the end we can all just take the game and go home. They can't stop us from playing the version we want for the rest of our lives. I wonder if they believe that. Or do they think the new audience (assuming it's not hypothetical) will give them the same loyalty as the old?

People didn't need WotC's permission to play the game however we wanted in the past.

----------


## Witty Username

> Being human means you're predetermined to start with a feat. Being an elf means you're predetermined to have dark vision. Those are predetermined things. And thus the statement, if taken seriously, means that races cannot provide any mechanical or fictional effects whatsoever, because those would predetermine at least one characteristic of your character.


Given that this directly contradicts the UA playtest material, that JC said has been met with positively and so is unlikely to change for the next round of playtest and the final product. I doubt that is what they are talking about.

I expect similar to MOTMV and the One D&D playtest material going forward, race features that favor particular classes less, but saying that races will be purely cosmetic sounds like fearmongering.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Given that this directly contradicts the UA playtest material, that JC said has been met with positively and so is unlikely to change for the next round of playtest and the final product. I doubt that is what they are talking about.
> 
> I expect similar to MOTMV and the One D&D playtest material going forward, race features that favor particular classes less, but saying that races will be purely cosmetic sounds like fearmongering.


So option a, which is "meaningless corporate pablum." Which I guess is better than the alternative...

----------


## Witty Username

> So option a, which is "meaningless corporate pablum." Which I guess is better than the alternative...


Pretty much, play lip service to thing and make no changes is about 90% of corporate discussion from what I can tell, the other 10% price increases.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Pretty much, play lip service to thing and make no changes is about 90% of corporate discussion from what I can tell, the other 10% price increases.


And finding ways to charge for things that were free.

I will note that when I heard that the new head of wotc came from the Xbox division of Microsoft, I knew two things were going to happen. More of a push for digital stuff, and more push for monetization everywhere, especially subscription services. Because that's why you'd hire someone with that background. Just like if you hired the ex CEO of KFC, you'd expect fried chicken to come up on the regular. Ok, mostly joking with that last sentence.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Sure, a characters' race doesn't predetermine _everything_ about a character--it never has (in 5e at least). It's just one component. But it should predetermine _some things_. If it doesn't...why have it as a parameter?


 A fair question that I am not sure she understands.  



> It's humans in rubber masks with a vengeance. And utterly incoherent.


 Given that all players are human, there is always a little bit of "humans in rubber masks" going on.  I mean, *Spoiler: silly example from our current campaign*
Show

when is the last time Jo'Vasha (the charactger) properly cleaned himself? (As a cat does ...)
 



> So now _all_ PCs are these weird alien creatures who stand outside the world sheerly and completely and only because they are PCs. That, to me, is the worst case possible.


 And that is a part of the problem that WoTC has chosen to introduce: how does this PC fit into the world?  


> Or, the statement is utterly vacuous.


 Given that a suit uttered it, I'll bet on this option.  :Small Cool: 



> It's hard to disagree with vapor.
> 
> "I think D&D should be a game where people enjoy playing things to the extent that they want to, and in ways they'd like. We think making sure everyone gets a chance to do that is the future." blah blah blah.
> 
> For the record, I work in the HR department of a Fortune 500 company. This boilerplate is all the same.


 Yep.  


> Or do they think the new audience (assuming it's not hypothetical) will give them the same loyalty as the old?


 I am pretty sure that they are counting on a new audience buying into the game after that movie comes out.  :Small Wink:  m It's not just a movie/story, it's an advertising campaign.  



> Pretty much, play lip service to thing and make no changes is about 90% of corporate discussion from what I can tell, the other 10% price increases.


 Yeah. 



> ... from the Xbox division of Microsoft, I knew two things were going to happen. More of a push for digital stuff, and more push for monetization everywhere, especially subscription services. Because that's why you'd hire someone with that background.


 My players can barely handle the VTT we use now. (Roll20).  I can't see having to introduce them to a non free VTT that they have to pay for, even though all of my players are employed and earn pay checks.

----------


## Atranen

> I guess we remain at an impasse then.


You say it doesn't matter either way. Some people like it. Because it isn't hurting anyone and benefits others, it is obvious it should be included.

----------


## Psyren

> You say it doesn't matter either way. Some people like it. Because it isn't hurting anyone and benefits others, it is obvious it should be included.


I've made it clear I'd rather it not be there. Just because it wouldn't stop _me personally,_ doesn't mean I don't see potential for it to be obstructive, retrograde etc to AL as a whole.




> My players can barely handle the VTT we use now. (Roll20).  I can't see having to introduce them to a non free VTT that they have to pay for, even though all of my players are employed and earn pay checks.


Out of curiosity, what don't they like about roll20? Such gaps could very well be things that a DnDBeyond VTT could solve or at least improve.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Out of curiosity, what don't they like about roll20?


 I didn't say that they didn't like it, but that _they can't handle it_.  Because I DM with it I know how to use most of the tools, but there are a lot of functions I have to go to the forums for to get answers to.  And the odd behavior of the dynamic lighting crops up time and again, though I am usually able to identify and resolve why then can't see ... 

None of them besides my brother (who is also a DM using it) and my nephew (who has DM'd using it) is even close to a master/competent user.  I thus have no confidence that with their lack of effort to learn that tool, which none of them pay for, they'd pay to get and then learn a new VTT.  

They also dislike the voice/video features, which R20 sometimes fixes and sometimes does not, but we've moved to Discord for voice long since.  
Which is a shame. 
When we first began to play on r20 we used voice and video and it was fine (except for one player who has never ending browser issues, and is more or less a luddite). 
Over time, we found that various browser issues and bugs cropped up, so eventually, as a group, we stopped using that feature.

Foundry is a pretty good VTT, but even with that our group (Phoenix DM) uses Discord for voice and various campaign text needs.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Ok, I' was on mobile last week and weekend so I didn't bother quoting but @Korvin, your Winston Smith comment made me chuckle. And whoever made the comment about "and my pseudopod" read my freaking mind lol. I was just imagining "You have my bow", "And my axe!", "And my pseudopod!" and the camera pans over to the right to reveal a humanoid ooze creature standing in their midst. Everyone present at the council screams and Gandalf nukes the creature with his magic.

Alternatively, the camera pans over and it's an aarakocra and he's like "I think I can just fly this over to Mount Doom right?" and grabs the ring and takes off.

Speaking of which... all the "just play at lower levels" arguments are starting to seem... inaccurate. Given that virtually everything has darkvision, teleportation, flight, or some other means of outright ignoring obstacles, right from level 1, by virtue of their race, I'm wondering what is going to differentiate low levels from high levels. "Oh no, I can see the bridge of Khazad-dum, but the stairs that lead there are destroyed and one mistep means plunging into a deep abyss!" *baamf!* *unfurls wings* *casts innate spell*


Anyways, thank you for posting the Questing Beast video. I think that sentiment was informing my comments about 5th edition being the last D&D edition for some people (as 3rd was for many). Because it's 100% true that WotC isn't needed to play D&D. So it really is a question of "what value are they going to give in return for this extra monetization" and "will all the new people they're chasing sustain the model going forward".

Given the direction things are going in, I'm skeptical that they'll be providing much of anything that interests me. I hope they do. Listening to Crawford talk about the process they undertake is hopeful and exciting. But if more people simply want a different game than I do, it's a moot point. On the second part, I'm also very skeptical that this popularity is going to go anywhere long term. I suspect they will milk it for a bit and then this fad will go away.

----------


## JNAProductions

Do you play D&D to recreate Lord of the Rings?

Because I think there's a third party supplement designed to give you a LotR experience in your 5E, because the base game is very much NOT Lord of the Rings.
It takes inspiration from it, but it's not the end goal.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Do you play D&D to recreate Lord of the Rings?
> 
> Because I think there's a third party supplement designed to give you a LotR experience in your 5E, because the base game is very much NOT Lord of the Rings.


Are you referring to AME/Adventures in Middle Earth?
Oh man, they stopped publishing!  Darnit!
Was thinking of getting that next year when our group will probably start again at level 1 ...  :Small Frown:

----------


## JNAProductions

> Are you referring to AME/Adventures in Middle Earth?


I think that's it.
I've heard good things about it, so if you legitimately want to recreate a Middle Earth experience, it's worth getting as far as I know.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

I wasn't aware that only Middle Earth has challenges easily circumvented by flight/teleportation/various spells and features. I guess my group and I are playing 5E wrong...

----------


## JNAProductions

> I wasn't aware that only Middle Earth has challenges easily circumvented by flight/teleportation/various spells and features. I guess my group and I are playing 5E wrong...


Banning flying races or nerfing them is perfectly reasonable for your own table. Because yeah, flight can solve a LOT of problems.

Shadar-Kai get two 30' teleports per long rest in Tier One. If your games collapse because someone gets a slightly better _Misty Step_ twice per day in Tier One, I'm not sure what to say.

Edit: I should say this, as a DM, I love it when PCs kick butt and do cool things. I distinctly recall a time when some monster used a magical sleep effect.

One of my players said "I'm an Elf."
I responded with "Okay, so?"
"I'm an Elf."
"Oh my god, you're immune! Well, okay, everyone else take a nap-B, you're still up."

That was *fun* for me. The player got to look at the rules, and say "Nope. I'm too awesome for that."

----------


## Dr.Samurai

So far, you've read my posts and came away with:

1. I want to play in Middle Earth games.
2. My games are collapsing due to racial abilities.
3. I don't like when players do cool things.

None of these are true, or, as far as I'm concerned, even suggested in what I wrote, and I don't really want to keep replying and have to explain away these weird assumptions.

----------


## JNAProductions

> So far, you've read my posts and came away with:
> 
> 1. I want to play in Middle Earth games.
> 2. My games are collapsing due to racial abilities.
> 3. I don't like when players do cool things.
> 
> None of these are true, or, as far as I'm concerned, even suggested in what I wrote, and I don't really want to keep replying and have to explain away these weird assumptions.


1) You keep harping on Lord of the Rings-again, D&D was inspired by it in its history, but it's definitely NOT the same thing. D&D is, at least in my experience, much less grounded and serious than Lord of the Rings.
2 and 3) If you don't have gameplay issues with them, and don't dislike players being awesome... Why is it a problem when a Shadar-Kai teleports past the door and unlocks it from the inside? Why is it an issue when the Owlin flies up the cliff and secures a rope for the rest?

----------


## Psyren

> I didn't say that they didn't like it, but that _they can't handle it_.  Because I DM with it I know how to use most of the tools, but there are a lot of functions I have to go to the forums for to get answers to.  And the odd behavior of the dynamic lighting crops up time and again, though I am usually able to identify and resolve why then can't see ... 
> 
> None of them besides my brother (who is also a DM using it) and my nephew (who has DM'd using it) is even close to a master/competent user.  I thus have no confidence that with their lack of effort to learn that tool, which none of them pay for, they'd pay to get and then learn a new VTT.  
> 
> They also dislike the voice/video features, which R20 sometimes fixes and sometimes does not, but we've moved to Discord for voice long since.  
> Which is a shame. 
> When we first began to play on r20 we used voice and video and it was fine (except for one player who has never ending browser issues, and is more or less a luddite). 
> Over time, we found that various browser issues and bugs cropped up, so eventually, as a group, we stopped using that feature.
> 
> Foundry is a pretty good VTT, but even with that our group (Phoenix DM) uses Discord for voice and various campaign text needs.


Understood and this makes sense, but all of that underscores my point - there appears to be a currently underserved niche for a VTT that is easy to pick up, has bells and whistles like dynamic lighting, works smoothly in a browser, and is centrally hosted unlike Foundry. And to your other point - one that is guaranteed to have the wide exposure necessary for there to be a large community for troubleshooting. Speaking just for myself, I'd gladly pay for a service like that, just as I have paid for roll20 and foundry.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Speaking just for myself, I'd gladly pay for a service like that, just as I have paid for roll20 and foundry.


 I have a pro subscription to r20, got it when I began to DM - but I started with the free version, and so did all of our players.  We recently added a new player (GiTP KurtKurageous is in our salt marsh game) and he had never used roll20.  I've been using it for so long that I had forgotten what my learning curve for it was ... he's asked a lot of questions that start with "OK, you want this, how do I do that" ... luckily the other 4 players are r20experienced and can usually steer him in the right direction.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Understood and this makes sense, but all of that underscores my point - there appears to be a currently underserved niche for a VTT that is easy to pick up, has bells and whistles like dynamic lighting, works smoothly in a browser, and is centrally hosted unlike Foundry. And to your other point - one that is guaranteed to have the wide exposure necessary for there to be a large community for troubleshooting. Speaking just for myself, I'd gladly pay for a service like that, just as I have paid for roll20 and foundry.


Speaking only for myself, one of my favorite things about Foundry is that I can self host. Currently it's in AWS on an EC2 instance. Where I have way more control and space for less cost than any central hub, and don't have to worry about them meddling with my content. If it's hosted on their servers, then they have the ability and often responsibility to police content use and behavior. I don't want any of that.

Am I an outlier on that? Probably. But not alone.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> 1) You keep harping on Lord of the Rings-again


It's always a joy when someone comes out of left field full of passive aggression and then full blown snark.

Someone else brought up LotR, and I thought it was a funny and apt example that also came to mind when I read the same comment they were replying to. It also reminded me that in conversations about martial/caster disparity, a lot of people are dismissed and told to "stick to low levels" if they want a certain feel for their campaign. My point is that "low levels" are increasingly more and more powerful and versatile. And these obstacles that would normally add tension or achievement in a narrative are less of an obstacle even at level 1. The point exists with or without a reference to LotR.



> 2 and 3) If you don't have gameplay issues with them, and don't dislike players being awesome... Why is it a problem when a Shadar-Kai teleports past the door and unlocks it from the inside? Why is it an issue when the Owlin flies up the cliff and secures a rope for the rest?


Because I don't think it helps the game to keep giving PCs more and more simple buttons to overcome more and more things before they've even selected their class or skills or ability scores, etc. And, again, language is important. Games don't have to collapse in order to recognize a gameplay issue.

Also, I'm guessing the shadar-kai is peeking through a large keyhole in order to teleport passed the door?

Re: VTT

I'd certainly pay for a VTT with all the bells and whistles. I am hopeful that WotC will trot something cool out for the reasons Psyren mentions. But they've stumbled in this neck of the woods for years now so... fingers and toes crossed.

----------


## Gignere

> It's always a joy when someone comes out of left field full of passive aggression and then full blown snark.
> 
> Someone else brought up LotR, and I thought it was a funny and apt example that also came to mind when I read the same comment they were replying to. It also reminded me that in conversations about martial/caster disparity, a lot of people are dismissed and told to "stick to low levels" if they want a certain feel for their campaign. My point is that "low levels" are increasingly more and more powerful and versatile. And these obstacles that would normally add tension or achievement in a narrative are less of an obstacle even at level 1. The point exists with or without a reference to LotR.
> 
> Because I don't think it helps the game to keep giving PCs more and more simple buttons to overcome more and more things before they've even selected their class or skills or ability scores, etc. And, again, language is important. Games don't have to collapse in order to recognize a gameplay issue.
> 
> Also, I'm guessing the shadar-kai is peeking through a large keyhole in order to teleport passed the door?
> 
> Re: VTT
> ...


Or under/over/side of the door, flush construction was rare before modern times, in one dungeon I played in, it was a feature because they wanted you to be unable to run from the oozes so easily so it was specified that each door have a 1/2 inch gap either on the top or bottom. The ooze monsters can and do roll right through close and locked doors when you thought you were safe.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Or under/over/side of the door, flush construction was rare before modern times, in one dungeon I played in, it was a feature because they wanted you to be unable to run from the oozes so easily so it was specified that each door have a 1/2 inch gap either on the top or bottom. The ooze monsters can and do roll right through close and locked doors when you thought you were safe.


Lol, that's a nice bit of horror right there  :Small Cool:

----------


## Psyren

> Speaking only for myself, one of my favorite things about Foundry is that I can self host. Currently it's in AWS on an EC2 instance. Where I have way more control and space for less cost than any central hub, and don't have to worry about them meddling with my content. If it's hosted on their servers, then they have the ability and often responsibility to police content use and behavior. I don't want any of that.
> 
> Am I an outlier on that? Probably. But not alone.


Sure, and I'm not saying that arranging your own server hosting is particularly difficult for tech-savvy folks such as us, not to mention having many benefits beyond tabletop gaming. But it's still a potential barrier to entry to online D&D that a DDB VTT can remove.




> Re: VTT
> 
> I'd certainly pay for a VTT with all the bells and whistles. I am hopeful that WotC will trot something cool out for the reasons Psyren mentions. But they've stumbled in this neck of the woods for years now so... fingers and toes crossed.


Agreed, although none of the other times did they simply shell out and acquire a team that looks like they know what they're doing like the DDB folks either  :Small Smile:

----------


## Trafalgar

> I didn't say that they didn't like it, but that _they can't handle it_.  Because I DM with it I know how to use most of the tools, but there are a lot of functions I have to go to the forums for to get answers to.  And the odd behavior of the dynamic lighting crops up time and again, though I am usually able to identify and resolve why then can't see ... 
> 
> None of them besides my brother (who is also a DM using it) and my nephew (who has DM'd using it) is even close to a master/competent user.  I thus have no confidence that with their lack of effort to learn that tool, which none of them pay for, they'd pay to get and then learn a new VTT.  
> 
> They also dislike the voice/video features, which R20 sometimes fixes and sometimes does not, but we've moved to Discord for voice long since.  
> Which is a shame. 
> When we first began to play on r20 we used voice and video and it was fine (except for one player who has never ending browser issues, and is more or less a luddite). 
> Over time, we found that various browser issues and bugs cropped up, so eventually, as a group, we stopped using that feature.
> 
> Foundry is a pretty good VTT, but even with that our group (Phoenix DM) uses Discord for voice and various campaign text needs.


I agree with this. I do think WOTC has an uphill battle coming with their own VTT. The video of it looks pretty slick, but so does Talespire and Foundry. I just looked on google and there are like 10+ VTTs out there now. I play Roll20 which has its problems (too numerous to name) but I can easily build enough of a session on the fly to have fun. I have also played on a pretty good theater of the mind game on Discord. 

And that's the problem, WOTC has to convince all the existing DMs to move to a new VTT. One way they might try to do this is to prevent other VTTs from using their content. I am not a lawyer but I don't think they can do this for existing content. But could they do it with the new "One D&D" stuff? I don't know.

Another problem I see is if the "One D&D" VTT only allows the latest D&D and not other systems. One thing I like about Roll 20 is the sheer number of systems on it. 

I think the OneD&D VTT will be like the Microsoft Phone OS coming out after IOS and Android. Maybe it was a superior operating system but no one wanted to buy a new phone to switch to it.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Another problem I see is if the "One D&D" VTT only allows the latest D&D and not other systems. One thing I like about Roll 20 is the sheer number of systems on it.


 Indeed. We have a game of Star Trek RPG set up (the GM had to bail due to RL work stuff) and are playin Blades in the Dark on roll20 currently with a different group.  



> I think the OneD&D VTT will be like the Microsoft Phone OS coming out after IOS and Android. Maybe it was a superior operating system but no one wanted to buy a new phone to switch to it.


 That made me giggle.  :Small Smile:

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I agree with this. I do think WOTC has an uphill battle coming with their own VTT. The video of it looks pretty slick, but so does Talespire and Foundry. I just looked on google and there are like 10+ VTTs out there now. I play Roll20 which has its problems (too numerous to name) but I can easily build enough of a session on the fly to have fun. I have also played on a pretty good theater of the mind game on Discord. 
> 
> And that's the problem, WOTC has to convince all the existing DMs to move to a new VTT. One way they might try to do this is to prevent other VTTs from using their content. I am not a lawyer but I don't think they can do this for existing content. But could they do it with the new "One D&D" stuff? I don't know.
> 
> Another problem I see is if the "One D&D" VTT only allows the latest D&D and not other systems. One thing I like about Roll 20 is the sheer number of systems on it. 
> 
> I think the OneD&D VTT will be like the Microsoft Phone OS coming out after IOS and Android. Maybe it was a superior operating system but no one wanted to buy a new phone to switch to it.


Yeah. And 3d first doesn't do much to reduce the load on DMs who want to switch. And produces massive incompatibility with all the devs who might want to port their plugins/add-ons to the new system. And that's a significant draw--being able to mod the system.

Effectively, they're trying to break into an established, mostly mature ecosystem with significant inherent lock-in. That's hard even if you're a big player. And WotC isn't a big player digitally, and has a bad track record in this space, at least on the D&D side. All the D&D games have been licensed out.

----------


## Joe the Rat

I'm wondering if it would be a better strategy to integrate v/v display from other sources rather than try and cook up their own.  




> When we first began to play on r20 we used voice and video and it was fine (except for one player who has never ending browser issues, and is more or less a luddite).


Did you guys play with Mike too?
(A longtime player with limited computer skills and a never-ending set of technical issues.  Also incredible dice luck - bad and good)

----------


## Psyren

> I think the OneD&D VTT will be like the Microsoft Phone OS coming out after IOS and Android. Maybe it was a superior operating system but no one wanted to buy a new phone to switch to it.


I don't think this analogy really works here. Windows Phone didn't catch on because it offered nothing that the other platforms didn't do as well or better, and had a dearth of apps besides. OneD&D's VTT meanwhile has the potential to offer an experience that none of the others can (particularly visually), while also being much more accessible than they are, with smooth integration between DDB sheets and WotC adventure maps. If they do it right, this will be more like the iPhone coming out after the Palm Pilot and Blackberry - offering a high-quality and focused experience on a closed ecosystem aimed at a less technical audience.

----------


## Segev

> And other people dont care so much, or even delight in smashing inviolates of the setting, to use another word.
> 
> Are they wrong?


Kind-of hard to "smash" an "inviolate" if there is nothing of the sort to smash.

----------


## Psyren

> Kind-of hard to "smash" an "inviolate" if there is nothing of the sort to smash.


I believe it was _"invariant"_ - and there are still plenty of those, even if you let Jim play a Tiefling adventurer in Krynn or whatever.

Again though, nothing is forcing you to do so. What you pro-invariant people want is to force WotC instead, and that's what I oppose.

----------


## Segev

> Understood and this makes sense, but all of that underscores my point - there appears to be a currently underserved niche for a VTT that is easy to pick up, has bells and whistles like dynamic lighting, works smoothly in a browser, and is centrally hosted unlike Foundry. And to your other point - one that is guaranteed to have the wide exposure necessary for there to be a large community for troubleshooting. Speaking just for myself, I'd gladly pay for a service like that, just as I have paid for roll20 and foundry.


And you think WotC really has the programming chops to pull that off, where existing VTTs have tried and failed due to technical problems?




> I believe it was _"invariant"_ - and there are still plenty of those, even if you let Jim play a Tiefling adventurer in Krynn or whatever.
> 
> Again though, nothing is forcing you to do so. What you pro-invariant people want is to force WotC instead, and that's what I oppose.


Note that the post I responded to used the word "inviolate." Yes, "invariant" was used before that, but not by the post to which I was replying. But that's irrelevant, as well, because I was able to accept that the two people meant the same thing by both words.

The trouble PhoenixPhyre is raising objection to is, at least in part, that it's not "you can let Jim play a Tiefling in Krynn," but rather that Krynn is suddenly a kitchen sink setting with every race having always been in it, perfectly normal to see. At least, that's my take-away. 

And I can't disagree with him that this is where things are heading, because I don't see where the natural stopping point is along this path that would make this a faulty argument.

----------


## Psyren

> And you think WotC really has the programming chops to pull that off, where existing VTTs have tried and failed due to technical problems?


If they were on their own, no - but they hadn't acquired another company WITH said chops before either. This time, supposedly, they did.

The sources I follow seem to believe that DDB had their VTT ready to go, or at least a version of it, shortly before the acquisition went through. If that's the case, D&D essentially bought themselves a VTT that they won't have to build from scratch like they tried to do before.




> The trouble PhoenixPhyre is raising objection to is, at least in part, that it's not "you can let Jim play a Tiefling in Krynn," but rather that Krynn is suddenly a kitchen sink setting with every race having always been in it, perfectly normal to see. At least, that's my take-away.


And as I have said to him repeatedly, "every" and "any" are two different things. 

Krynn is a setting where _some_ races beyond the standard ones could have persisted from the AoM through the Cataclysm to the current era. Which ones exactly? Well, that's where each DM comes in.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> And as I have said to him repeatedly, "every" and "any" are two different things.


Until one player wants to play a Tabaxi and the other wants to play a Warforged and another wants to play a Kenku. Now we're all holdovers from another era? Or planeshifters? Or astronauts?

"I am Regdar, knight errant of Solamnia, fighting against the forces of evil to save my homeland."

"I'm Xchurkdjisu'fkdnw, a sentient ooze from beyond the stars. Look at all the funny looks I get. Haha, everyone thinks I'm weird!!!"



> Krynn is a setting where _some_ races beyond the standard ones could have persisted from the AoM through the Cataclysm to the current era. Which ones exactly? Well, that's where each DM comes in.


You can say something similar about any setting. Which means every setting has any race. And your distinction between "every" and "any" is reduced the more players want to play something that isn't in the setting. 

If I am running a dragonlance setting and my players want to be a plasmoid, a loxodon, a symic hybrid, a changeling, and a tortle, for all intents and purposes "every" race exists on Krynn.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> And you think WotC really has the programming chops to pull that off, where existing VTTs have tried and failed due to technical problems?


 I have not tried fantasy grounds; not sure where to fit them into this discussion. Seen a few videos and I have heard some good things about them. 
Owlbear Rodeo isn't fancy but it's decent at what it does.  



> Until one player wants to play a Tabaxi and the other wants to play a Warforged and another wants to play a Kenku.


 I solve issues like that by saying "No. Kenku are not a PC race. Pick another one. There are numerous choices."  
If a player isn't willing to work with me on that, then I won't miss them at the table.  
And if we look at this from their perspective: if for the player that is a deal breaker, me saying no, I am probably not the DM that they are looking for in the first place. Better to find that out sooner, not later.  

Fitting warforged into any game I DM.  This will take an discussion between myself and the player to see it's origin and how it fits.  If I like what I hear, in terms of the player's imagination and depth, might work out.  But for sure, that warforged is gonna draw a lot of stares in certain venues.  



> "I am Regdar, knight errant of Solamnia, fighting against the forces of evil to save my homeland."
> 
> "I'm Xchurkdjisu'fkdnw, a sentient ooze from beyond the stars. Look at all the funny looks I get. Haha, everyone thinks I'm weird!!!"


 I don't have PC's as oozes. Problem solved. 



> If I am running a dragonlance setting and my players want to be a plasmoid, a loxodon, a symic hybrid, a changeling, and a tortle, for all intents and purposes "every" race exists on Krynn.


 If I am  running a game on Krynn, and that's what the players propose, I'll probably point them to the FLGS and the local AL options and advise them to have a great time.

DMs are allowed to have fun too.

----------


## EggKookoo

> I don't have PC's as oozes. Problem solved.


This is really a question about setting, not the game itself. Should D&D let you play an ooze PC? Sure! Should every setting (including every DM's custom table) be forced to allow ooze PCs because there are rules for them in the books? No.

----------


## SpikeFightwicky

> If I am  running a game on Krynn, and that's what the players propose, I'll probably point them to the FLGS and the local AL options and advise them to have a great time.
> 
> DMs are allowed to have fun too.


I think this is where the issue is.  Let's say a group that started in 5e with no prior knowledge of Krynn start up a Dragonlance campaign using the new book.  Does the new book offer guidelines as to which races are typical in Krynn and which are rare?  I don't own the book, I don't know.  But if you yourself are running your Krynn game, are you basing your choice to disallow Simic Hybrids on information you knew from before 5e, or information you read about in the current Dragonlance book?  The hypothetical new group will have a completely different vision about Krynn than you (assuming the new book doesn't mention which races are typical of the setting...  I know Wildemount and Eberron did, for what it's worth.)  I don't know how much Krynnian history the new book goes through, but I assume half the book is an adventure, which minimizes room for setting fluff.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> This is really a question about setting, not the game itself.  Should D&D let you play an ooze PC? Sure! Should every setting (including every DM's custom table) be forced to allow ooze PCs because there are rules for them in the books? No.


 Nice, concise summary of what I was getting at. Thank you.  :Small Smile:  



> I think this is where the issue is.  
> Let's say a group that started in 5e with no prior knowledge of Krynn start up a Dragonlance campaign using the new book.  
> Does the new book offer guidelines as to which races are typical in Krynn and which are rare?  I don't own the book, I don't know.  But if you yourself are running your Krynn game, are you basing your choice to disallow Simic Hybrids on information you knew from before 5e, or information you read about in the current Dragonlance book?


 Core +1 solves that problem, doesn't it?  I thought that when AL did that it was a good idea.  

Beyond that: given that I detest the M;tG infection of D&D 5e, anything Ravnica is banned.  Let us be clear: that's a personal taste thing.  Plenty of other people love it, and serve it with extra sprinkles.  :Small Cool:

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Beyond that: given that I detest the M;tG infection of D&D 5e, anything Ravnica is banned.


I'm right there with you on that. One (horrible, tin-foil-hat probability) thought I had (based on looking at both the D&D side and the M:tG current story arc) is that they're intentionally burning down the existing M:tG setting(s) so that they can thoroughly incorporate it into the D&D multiverse. Or worse, _merge_ the two officially, in canon for both multiverses. Sure, they've made noise in this direction. And even had a M:tG set centered around D&D. But you haven't seen (to my knowledge) canon D&D characters in M:tG story arcs or canon planeswalkers in "stock" D&D setting material.

The two cosmologies are so alien that I hold out little hope for a proper union.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Couldn't it be a matter of making the Magic settings into either their own crystal spheres (Spelljammer) or planes (Planescape)? Then you can reach any of them through a spelljamming ship or by planeswalking (using Plane Shift or stepping through a door in Sigil).

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Couldn't it be a matter of making the Magic settings into either their own crystal spheres (Spelljammer) or planes (Planescape)? Then you can reach any of them through a spelljamming ship or by planeswalking (using Plane Shift or stepping through a door in Sigil).


The differences in base cosmology are too fundamental for that. The nature of magic, the underlying basic metaphysics, the nature of "planes", the nature (or lack there of) of gods, etc.

Shoving them into crystal spheres means they share the same base Great Wheel cosmology (as does making them planescape planes), and that's the part that breaks. Mostly because that means that 99.99998% of the events in the M:tG multiverse make no sense whatsoever.

Of course, all of that relies on having setting developers who care about consistency and coherence. Something I've not really seen great signs of from modern WotC.

----------


## OldTrees1

> I'm right there with you on that. One (horrible, tin-foil-hat probability) thought I had (based on looking at both the D&D side and the M:tG current story arc) is that they're intentionally burning down the existing M:tG setting(s) so that they can thoroughly incorporate it into the D&D multiverse. Or worse, _merge_ the two officially, in canon for both multiverses. Sure, they've made noise in this direction. And even had a M:tG set centered around D&D. But you haven't seen (to my knowledge) canon D&D characters in M:tG story arcs or canon planeswalkers in "stock" D&D setting material.
> 
> The two cosmologies are so alien that I hold out little hope for a proper union.


I don't see MtG burning down the MtG setting(s) in MtG. Are you referring to something burning down the D&D versions of MtG setting(s)? On the MtG side they are doing a multiplanar conflict that is heavily based in the MtG setting, and then will return to other established MtG planes. They are also making a clear delineation between the MtG MtG settings and the "universes beyond" settings of D&D, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, etc. Only the actual MtG setting is involved in the MtG story/canon.




> Couldn't it be a matter of making the Magic settings into either their own crystal spheres (Spelljammer) or planes (Planescape)? Then you can reach any of them through a spelljamming ship or by planeswalking (using Plane Shift or stepping through a door in Sigil).


It would be an imperfect solution.
1) Planeswalking is impossible by default. Only those with the spark, or specific artifact gates. The Weatherlight is a ship, but uses a planar portal rather than merely sailing from one plane to another. This contradicts the Spelljammer Crystal Spheres where travel is possible by default (just fly there) but has obstacles (gravity, phlogiston) that make it hard enough to not be feasible for most.
2) Despite planeswalking being instant in MtG, there is something between the planes. (Oh like the Astral Plane right?) However MtG's limited lore on the Blind Eternities includes the popular Eldrazi. While the closest analog to the Blind Eternities is the Astral Plane, the Eldrazi would be out of place in the Astral Plane.

As you can tell, those are both nits. The fit is imperfect, but Spelljammer, Planescape, and MtG were designed to be accommodating.

Edit: PhoenixPhyre does point out conflicts with the history and interactions between the systems. I forgot to mention those.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I don't see MtG burning down the MtG setting(s) in MtG. Are you referring to something burning down the D&D versions of MtG setting(s)? On the MtG side they are doing a multiplanar conflict that is heavily based in the MtG setting, and then will return to other established MtG planes. They are also making a clear delineation between the MtG MtG settings and the "universes beyond" settings of D&D, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, etc. Only the actual MtG setting is involved in the MtG story/canon.


I don't put it as particularly probable either. Hence my "tin-foil-hat" comment.




> It would be an imperfect solution.
> 1) Planeswalking is impossible by default. Only those with the spark, or specific artifact gates. The Weatherlight is a ship, but uses a planar portal rather than merely sailing from one plane to another. This contradicts the Spelljammer Crystal Spheres where travel is possible by default (just fly there) but has obstacles (gravity, phlogiston) that make it hard enough to not be feasible for most.
> 2) Despite planeswalking being instant in MtG, there is something between the planes. (Oh like the Astral Plane right?) However MtG's limited lore on the Blind Eternities includes the popular Eldrazi. While the closest analog to the Blind Eternities is the Astral Plane, the Eldrazi would be out of place in the Astral Plane.
> 
> As you can tell, those are both nits. The fit is imperfect, but Spelljammer, Planescape, and MtG were designed to be accommodating.
> 
> Edit: PhoenixPhyre does point out conflicts with the history and interactions between the systems. I forgot to mention those.


There are deeper issues. For one thing, the nature of angels and devils is entirely M:tG!plane dependent. Which doesn't mesh with the Great Wheel at all, where those things are fixed at the multiverse level. It's the same issue that Eberron has when crammed into the Great Wheel multiverse--fundamental setting assumptions have to get retconned in ways that are...at odds...with the rest of the setting and its themes.

For another, the concept of "colored mana" (and the color wheel in fact) doesn't fit into a D&D-based setting. As well as the nature and origins of all the various races in MtG planes (which are wildly different plane-to-plane, yet the D&D multiverse demands that they all be identical.

And the list goes on.

M:tG and D&D are not cosmologically compatible without doing extreme violence to one, the other, or (more likely) both. At least if you care about cosmological consistency.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

You two make very rational and intelligent points.

And yet I still think they might try and cram a square peg into a round hole. Eberron is one example, but also aren't elves descended from halflings in Dark Sun? And dwarves descended from gnomes in Dragonlance?

They've still gone out of their way to "unify" everything.

Now, I don't know that there is any incentive to do that with M:tG. But I can certainly see them trying to if they thought there was.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> You two make very rational and intelligent points.
> 
> And yet I still think they might try and cram a square peg into a round hole. Eberron is one example, but also aren't elves descended from halflings in Dark Sun? And dwarves descended from gnomes in Dragonlance?
> 
> They've still gone out of their way to "unify" everything.
> 
> Now, I don't know that there is any incentive to do that with M:tG. But I can certainly see them trying to if they thought there was.


I've learned by sad experience to never overestimate the sanity of developers. Of any project. Regardless of company. Objectively stupid things happen way too frequently, even on well run projects.

----------


## Psyren

> Until one player wants to play a Tabaxi and the other wants to play a Warforged and another wants to play a Kenku. Now we're all holdovers from another era? Or planeshifters? Or astronauts?
> 
> "I am Regdar, knight errant of Solamnia, fighting against the forces of evil to save my homeland."
> 
> "I'm Xchurkdjisu'fkdnw, a sentient ooze from beyond the stars. Look at all the funny looks I get. Haha, everyone thinks I'm weird!!!"


If you as the DM truly find any of these unacceptable, have an adult conversation with your players and (magic word) _compromise_ about it. Other tables being okay with such races being able to adventure in Krynn or anywhere else doesn't make those tables wrong.




> You can say something similar about any setting. Which means every setting has any race.


Every _published_ setting _can_, yes. You still have the freedom within that framework to disallow specific races as befits your own sense of immersion/disbelief, without asking WotC to impose your own values on every other table. Alternatively, you don't have to use a published setting at all; you can make your own World of Isolatia that is entirely walled off from D&D's multiverse if you so choose.




> And your distinction between "every" and "any" is reduced the more players want to play something that isn't in the setting. 
> 
> If I am running a dragonlance setting and my players want to be a plasmoid, a loxodon, a symic hybrid, a changeling, and a tortle, for all intents and purposes "every" race exists on Krynn.


If allowing those races to be played is not fun _for you_, tell your players "no." It's not hard. (And if it is, that's a deeper problem than a game publisher can solve.)

I would certainly have no trouble disallowing a simic hybrid or a plasmoid in my Krynn campaign. But I think a Changeling PC could be a great deal of fun there, and Loxodons or Tortles would probably garner no worse a reaction than Ardlings from the AOM would.

----------


## Segev

> Every _published_ setting _can_, yes. You still have the freedom within that framework to disallow specific races as befits your own sense of immersion/disbelief, without asking WotC to impose your own values on every other table. Alternatively, you don't have to use a published setting at all; you can make your own World of Isolatia that is entirely walled off from D&D's multiverse if you so choose.


Every published setting always could have anything that the DM and a player agreed to include, worked in however they wanted. The trouble with the direction we're going is that hte default is becoming that everything possible IS there. Not, "This doesn't exist here, so you have to come up with a creative way to work it in as an exception if you want it," but instead, "It's totally true that anything you want is here, and it's on DMs to convince you that what you want is okay for them to ban, even though it totally COULD be there, and it wouldn't even be weird."

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Every published setting always could have anything that the DM and a player agreed to include, worked in however they wanted. The trouble with the direction we're going is that hte default is becoming that everything possible IS there. Not, "This doesn't exist here, so you have to come up with a creative way to work it in as an exception if you want it," but instead, "It's totally true that anything you want is here, and it's on DMs to convince you that what you want is okay for them to ban, even though it totally COULD be there, and it wouldn't even be weird."


Exactly. Swapping from a "default restricted list" to "default open list" is a _massive_ change even if you can get to the same result either way. Defaults are sticky and set expectations. And an expectation of "the setting and the DM will tell you what's available and it's on you to advocate for other things" is VERY different from "anything goes by default and the DM has to convince you why it's not available and if they do so they're being restrictive, the setting doesn't care".

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Case in point, all of the veiled allusions in this thread that we're miserable irrational people that hate others having fun and want to restrict everything from everyone.

As I've said previously, in arguing against the point, the point is proven.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Case in point, all of the veiled allusions in this thread that we're miserable irrational people that hate others having fun and want to restrict everything from everyone.
> 
> As I've said previously, in arguing against the point, the point is proven.


It's definitely the tone I've taken from it, whether or not it was intentional. And it's come across lots in other similar threads--having a deny list is considered hostile to player fun.

----------


## OldTrees1

> Case in point, all of the veiled allusions in this thread that we're miserable irrational people that hate others having fun and want to restrict everything from everyone.
> 
> As I've said previously, in arguing against the point, the point is proven.





> It's definitely the tone I've taken from it, whether or not it was intentional. And it's come across lots in other similar threads--having a deny list is considered hostile to player fun.


As someone on the opposite preference (I expand the allow lists in my campaigns at the expense of some consistency PhoenixPhyre enjoys), I see nothing wrong with having deny lists. Furthermore several of your points were about the commercial settings before a campaign rather than limitations on PCs for a campaign. I see even less validity in the tone and strawman tactics of the arguments you have endured.

My favorite settings happen to be rather cosmopolitan. However that is due to other invariants those settings have. I understand the concern about a commercial product's quality decreasing as it replaces content with vagueness.

----------


## Psyren

> Every published setting always could have anything that the DM and a player agreed to include, worked in however they wanted. The trouble with the direction we're going is that the default is becoming that everything possible IS there.


They're making it clearer that _anything_ possible COULD be there. Again, that's different than saying _everything_ possible IS there.

"Everything" means you need to justify every single race that exists, or will exist, being in that setting. "Anything" simply means you only need to justify the specific races you and your players agree on being in that particular campaign. And if you disagree, have a conversation and compromise. I'm just not seeing what's so difficult about that. It's not a dirty word.

----------


## Trafalgar

> I don't think this analogy really works here. Windows Phone didn't catch on because it offered nothing that the other platforms didn't do as well or better, and had a dearth of apps besides. OneD&D's VTT meanwhile has the potential to offer an experience that none of the others can (particularly visually), while also being much more accessible than they are, with smooth integration between DDB sheets and WotC adventure maps. If they do it right, this will be more like the iPhone coming out after the Palm Pilot and Blackberry - offering a high-quality and focused experience on a closed ecosystem aimed at a less technical audience.


But WOTC is not a technology company like Apple and there is nothing I have seen so far that isn't matched by an existing VTT. The preview is not visually better than Talespire, for example. I guess the DDB sheet is a plus but it only takes me 5 minutes to enter a new character into any VTT I've tried. I usually do it while waiting for other people to log on.

The real test will ease of use by DMs. How hard will it be to design my own environments? Can I design things on the fly or does it all have to be done ahead of time? Will I have to buy a lot of skins to create my own campaign? Can third party game designers sell maps? (probably not)

They have got to convince DMs to move over to the new system unless they are going to use AI DMs and make it another MMORPG. And the existing D&D MMORPG was never that successful.

----------


## Brookshw

> I understand the concern about a commercial product's quality decreasing as it replaces content with vagueness.


I do think there's a bit of a double edged sword here. Sure, fair to expect a setting to be reasonably detailed and to have a "life blood" of its own, however, I do think there's a danger of it being too detailed to the point where new players/DMs feel put upon to have to learn extensive lore to run/play in it (e.g., Forgotten Realms), or, its so detailed that there's a lot of deconstruction to be done if you want  certain campaign elements/conflicts to be reasonably plausible/possible but which otherwise wouldn't fit a highly detailed default. 

Basically, there's a benefit to leaving some space on a map that the DM fills in.

----------


## EggKookoo

> It's definitely the tone I've taken from it, whether or not it was intentional. And it's come across lots in other similar threads--having a deny list is considered hostile to player fun.


I like deny lists, or at least settings or tables that restrict choices. I find them to be actually _about_ something.

My first 2e DM had a "no PC elves" rule. Blew my mind at the time. I hadn't considered that you could even do that. But his world was well thought out and great to play in.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I like deny lists, or at least settings or tables that restrict choices. I find them to be actually _about_ something.
> 
> My first 2e DM had a "no PC elves" rule. Blew my mind at the time. I hadn't considered that you could even do that. But his world was well thought out and great to play in.


I'm much the same way. I'm actively wary of games that _don't_ have content restrictions. Not because I think the DM is bad, but because it's a signal of a type of game I'm not particularly interested in.

At the "publishing settings" level, I find zero value in publishing more "anything goes" settings. Because that niche is already exhaustively occupied--in fact, it only takes a single occupant. The set of content available is part of the signature of the setting. Sure, individual DMs can override that (as they always can). But the setting itself should proclaim a signature, and that means restricting content.

Imagine a setting that proudly said "ok, no clerics, because all the gods are dead" or "there are only elves." or "there are only humans".

----------


## OldTrees1

> I do think there's a bit of a double edged sword here. Sure, fair to expect a setting to be reasonably detailed and to have a "life blood" of its own, however, I do think there's a danger of it being too detailed to the point where new players/DMs feel put upon to have to learn extensive lore to run/play in it (e.g., Forgotten Realms), or, its so detailed that there's a lot of deconstruction to be done if you want  certain campaign elements/conflicts to be reasonably plausible/possible but which otherwise wouldn't fit a highly detailed default. 
> 
> Basically, there's a benefit to leaving some space on a map that the DM fills in.


Agreed. If there is basically nothing there, then it is not a meal. If it is too detailed then I can't digest it all.

The balance point will vary depending on the day/goal/person. If you make a product that only serves a tiny audience (due to it being too detailed or too vague) then fewer people will buy your product.

Many different onion approaches help here. Be very clear about the high level with less detail the further you zoom in.

----------


## Psyren

> At the "publishing settings" level, I find zero value in publishing more "anything goes" settings. Because that niche is already exhaustively occupied--in fact, it only takes a single occupant. The set of content available is part of the signature of the setting. Sure, individual DMs can override that (as they always can). But the setting itself should proclaim a signature, and that means restricting content.
> 
> Imagine a setting that proudly said "ok, no clerics, because all the gods are dead" or "there are only elves." or "there are only humans".


There is plenty of "content" in this game besides races and classes though.
Moreover, the published settings do have the canonical restrictions you seem to want, you just have to set your campaign in a different time period. For example, if you want "no clerics" in Faerun, you can set your campaign during the Time of Troubles or the Spellplague, or during/shortly after the Cataclysm for Krynn.

As for niche settings - why does WotC need to make those? The nice thing about a niche is it gives 3PP fertile ground to carve a name out for themselves. It seems to me that all the energy being expended on trying to make WotC serve a niche they clearly don't want to, could instead be spent on promoting another publisher that does.

----------


## Segev

> They're making it clearer that _anything_ possible COULD be there. Again, that's different than saying _everything_ possible IS there.
> 
> "Everything" means you need to justify every single race that exists, or will exist, being in that setting. "Anything" simply means you only need to justify the specific races you and your players agree on being in that particular campaign. And if you disagree, have a conversation and compromise. I'm just not seeing what's so difficult about that. It's not a dirty word.


But that's not what they're doing. They're saying "anything could be here, because anything goes," which really means "expect that everything IS here, somewhere."

Apparently Eberron now has Lolth-worshipping drow as well as the drow native to the setting, and warforged exist in Krynn and you're being overly restrictive if you say, "No, they have no place in the setting; you'd need to come up with something truly unique to make one of those fit the setting and it'd probably BE a unique creature."

----------


## Psyren

> But that's not what they're doing. They're saying "anything could be here, because anything goes," which really means "expect that everything IS here, somewhere."


What it means is that you have sanction to negotiate your fun, both as a DM and as a player. Yes, some extreme DMs will be tyrants, just like some on the other end of the extreme will be doormats - but WotC's job isn't to cater to either fringe, rather it's to support the majority of playgroups that fall somewhere in between those two extremes.




> Apparently Eberron now has Lolth-worshipping drow as well as the drow native to the setting, and warforged exist in Krynn and you're being overly restrictive if you say, "No, they have no place in the setting; you'd need to come up with something truly unique to make one of those fit the setting and it'd probably BE a unique creature."


Lolth's cult is canonically multiversal. So long as not _all_ Drow follow her, _some_ can pop up anywhere Drow do. Given that Lolthite Drow are generally NPCs, such inclusion would be even more up to DM discretion than a PC request. (Players generally have little to no say in the monsters they face.)

I'm not seeing anything indicating Warforged are in Krynn or that DMs are required to account for them against their own wishes.

----------


## TurboGhast

Something that I think is worth noting about the every character option  available in every official setting tangent the threads on is that removing options from the normal pool is a very effort-efficient way to make a setting feel different. Saying that This is an underwater setting so you must pick a species with gills or an equivalent or This is an underground setting so you need to play a character with darkvision can push players out of their build comfort zone, producing different sorts of parties that help make being in this setting feel different from being in another setting. Adding options takes testing to make sure they arent OP, where removing options from a PvE game is far less likely to break something.

WotC discarding this tool for the sake of making every setting book apply to every official setting makes it much harder for them to make those settings distinct, and makes me think theyre prioritizing monetization over quality.

----------


## Psyren

You don't need an entire published _setting_ to be underground or underwater in order to impose such limitations. Make _your campaign_ take place in the Underdark/Khyber, or the depths of {ocean}, and then restrict those options for PCs in that campaign accordingly.

----------


## TurboGhast

> You don't need an entire published _setting_ to be underground or underwater in order to impose such limitations. Make _your campaign_ take place in the Underdark/Khyber, or the depths of {ocean}, and then restrict those options for PCs in that campaign accordingly.


Youre missing my point, which is that the official settings are worse off because theyre not doing this. The change makes them more similar to eachother, and as a result less interesting when taken as a whole. I also feel a canary in a coal mine effect where this change makes me worried there are more changes which drop quality in favor of monetization around the corner.

----------


## Psyren

> Youre missing my point, which is that the official settings are worse off because theyre not doing this. The change makes them more similar to eachother, and as a result less interesting when taken as a whole. I also feel a canary in a coal mine effect where this change makes me worried there are more changes which drop quality in favor of monetization around the corner.


I do understand your point, I just disagree with it. A first-party published setting that removes surface- or land-dwelling races, if such a thing even needs to exist, can wait. If enough people want that for it to be viable, DMsGuild is the ideal vehicle to prove that.

----------


## Kane0

> Owlbear Rodeo isn't fancy but it's decent at what it does.


I use it for Battletech too!

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Something that I think is worth noting about the every character option  available in every official setting tangent the threads on is that removing options from the normal pool is a very effort-efficient way to make a setting feel different. Saying that This is an underwater setting so you must pick a species with gills or an equivalent or This is an underground setting so you need to play a character with darkvision can push players out of their build comfort zone, producing different sorts of parties that help make being in this setting feel different from being in another setting. Adding options takes testing to make sure they arent OP, where removing options from a PvE game is far less likely to break something.
> 
> WotC discarding this tool for the sake of making every setting book apply to every official setting makes it much harder for them to make those settings distinct, and makes me think theyre prioritizing monetization over quality.


Agreed. And some of the most fun games I've played in are ones where the DM has given us a short list of acceptable races/classes. I've played in a couple of east asian inspired homebrew settings (same DM each time) where we were only allowed to choose from Human, Dragonborn, Dwarf, Halfling, Genasi, Aasimar/Tiefling. I'm currently playing in another homebrew setting where we were only allowed to play humans (DM allowed one aasimar). 

The idea that it's something that needs to be corrected for that Dragonlance, Eberron, and Dark Sun have certain races with certain origins, and lack other races, is misguided, and seems to only serve the purpose of putting out content and giving players the sense that they can use any of that content in any game featuring a published setting.

And I agree with the "canary in the coal mine" sentiment as well.

----------


## Sir Chuckles

I actually recently had an interaction where someone outright stated that I was a bad DM because of my restricted race list for my personal setting. They stated that any race or class restriction for any reason is a red flag to them. That if they wanted to play a <thing> in my homebrew world that if I didn't work with them to write the race into the setting that I was DMing incorrectly.

Now, that was the most blatant I've seen it. But that sentiment seems to be pretty clearly put forward here and elsewhere.

And that sentiment feels like it's growing. But not as specifically due to an intrinsic change to the way the books are worded. Rather due to a feedback loop of extrinsic player factors and the homogenization of settings creating it. I don't think the statement earlier in the thread that D&D is outright an escapist power fantasy is entirely accurate, but you can't deny that a lot of people go into it looking for a heroic bad guy smashing fantasy romp (with the possibly of melodrama always present).

And I am frankly a bit confused at how that expectation is going to be both met and monetized.

----------


## EggKookoo

> I don't think the statement earlier in the thread that D&D is outright an escapist power fantasy is entirely accurate, but you can't deny that a lot of people go into it looking for a heroic bad guy smashing fantasy romp (with the possibly of melodrama always present).


To my mind it's pretty undeniable that D&D is an escapist power fantasy _primarily_. You can tack stuff onto it but that's what it is at its heart.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> To my mind it's pretty undeniable that D&D is an escapist power fantasy _primarily_.


For wizard players. For everyone else it's an enjoyable team-oriented passtime.  :Small Tongue:

----------


## Psyren

> The idea that it's something that needs to be corrected for that Dragonlance, Eberron, and Dark Sun have certain races with certain origins, and lack other races, is misguided, and seems to only serve the purpose of putting out content and giving players the sense that they can use any of that content in any game featuring a published setting.


Eberron has been kitchen sink since its inception. _"If it has a place in D&D, it has a place in Eberron"_ has been Keith Baker's mantra since the original Eberron Campaign Setting released nearly two decades ago in 2004, and it's even right in the first rulebook (ECS pg. 8).

As for Dragonlance and Dark Sun, while those settings largely predate the concept of a D&D multiverse, both settings have had past eras of extremely high magic that can be used to explain nearly anything the table is interested in. None of these three settings have ever been closed systems. WotC is rightly more interested in supplying "here's a reason you can say yes if you want to" rather than "let us say no for you."




> I actually recently had an interaction where someone outright stated that I was a bad DM because of my restricted race list for my personal setting. They stated that any race or class restriction for any reason is a red flag to them. That if they wanted to play a <thing> in my homebrew world that if I didn't work with them to write the race into the setting that I was DMing incorrectly.
> 
> Now, that was the most blatant I've seen it. But that sentiment seems to be pretty clearly put forward here and elsewhere.


I haven't seen anyone saying your homebrew world shouldn't be allowed to have whatever race or class restrictions you want it to. I certainly haven't.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I haven't seen anyone saying your homebrew world shouldn't be allowed to have whatever race or class restrictions you want it to. I certainly haven't.


In a thread I started, I was explicitly told that having racial and class restrictions _at all_ was a strong red flag for a railroading/bad DM because good DMs should be able to work around anything and should allow people to refluff anything they want. In just about those terms.

----------


## Psyren

> In a thread I started, I was explicitly told that having racial and class restrictions _at all_ was a strong red flag for a railroading/bad DM because good DMs should be able to work around anything and should allow people to refluff anything they want. In just about those terms.


In your homebrew world? I'm sorry to hear that, but as I said, I haven't seen such a thing.

And even if that occurred exactly as you describe it, that sounds like an issue between you and the source(s) of that specific post/opinion, not something WotC needs to be involved in, even if they could somehow do something about it.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> In your homebrew world? I'm sorry to hear that, but as I said, I haven't seen such a thing.
> 
> And even if that occurred exactly as you describe it, that sounds like an issue between you and the source(s) of that specific post/opinion, not something WotC needs to be involved in, even if they could somehow do something about it.


WotC is very much involved in creating a culture that says that players are entitled to assume that everything is available and that the DM has to explicitly justify any bans. Which is what they're doing by making it clear in player-facing materials that that's their baseline.

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## Dr.Samurai

> Eberron has been kitchen sink since its inception. _"If it has a place in D&D, it has a place in Eberron"_ has been Keith Baker's mantra since the original Eberron Campaign Setting released nearly two decades ago in 2004, and it's even right in the first rulebook (ECS pg. 8).


That's not Keith Baker's mantra, that's WotC's position.

And again... you keep trying to walk this tightrope of "I'm not saying _everything_, just _anything_" but you keep arguing positions for "everything". As an example, would you interpret that line as meaning "yeah, even though the gods are not actively present or tangible in this setting, and it's a completely different and unconnected pantheon, and the drow even have their own pantheon and there is no mention of Lolth, yes in fact this setting does have Lolth in it and she is a god and there are drow that worship her". Is that your takeaway from that? 



> As for Dragonlance and Dark Sun, while those settings largely predate the concept of a D&D multiverse, both settings have had past eras of extremely high magic that can be used to explain nearly anything the table is interested in. None of these three settings have ever been closed systems. WotC is rightly more interested in supplying "here's a reason you can say yes if you want to" rather than "let us say no for you."


In other words, there are no closed settings, this entire conversation has been meaningless, and everything is available no matter what setting you're in. Because there's an explanation that can be made.

Yikes...



> I haven't seen anyone saying your homebrew world shouldn't be allowed to have whatever race or class restrictions you want it to. I certainly haven't.


They are literally sharing an anecdote with you, and yes, the tone in this thread has been very much in that vein.



> WotC is very much involved in creating a culture that says that players are entitled to assume that everything is available and that the DM has to explicitly justify any bans. Which is what they're doing by making it clear in player-facing materials that that's their baseline.


This is precisely what is being missed. By fostering this attitude that "sure, this setting has defined parameters BUT pretty much everything _nearly anything_ can work here because of high magic/spelljammer/planescape", DMs are running into bratty entitled players at their home games.

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## Brookshw

> As for Dragonlance and *Dark Sun*, while those settings largely predate the concept of a D&D multiverse, both settings have had past eras of extremely high magic that can be used to explain nearly anything the table is interested in. None of these three settings have ever been closed systems. WotC is rightly more interested in supplying "here's a reason you can say yes if you want to" rather than "let us say no for you."


No way, DS expressly genocide'd a number of races via the Sorcerer Kings. Gnome? Gone. Dead. All of them. Many others as well. Portals to the world are extremely rare, secretive, and closely guarded, and not by nice people a PC would likely associate with, it was cut off from the greater cosmology, and inaccessible via Spelljammers. It did not "predate" the concept of a D&D multiverse, it was explicitly set aside and isolated from it. That's definitely as closed of a system as you're going to get, and expressly provided reasons you couldn't play a number of races.

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## Dr.Samurai

Which is the point. If Dark Sun, of all settings, is not considered a "closed system" in this sense, then what possibly can be? The answer is no setting is. Everything goes.

It's like we have to have 50 pages of bickering before arriving at the point we've been putting forth since day 1.

Even classifying Eberron as "kitchen sink" is inaccurate.

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## EggKookoo

> This is precisely what is being missed. By fostering this attitude that "sure, this setting has defined parameters BUT pretty much everything _nearly anything_ can work here because of high magic/spelljammer/planescape", DMs are running into bratty entitled players at their home games.


There is a bit a rock and a hard place situation for them. They want to sell people on their Cool New Thing. The easiest way to do that is to tell you how cool it will be to use it. It's a little harder if they have to phrase it as "You can be a new [whatever] race as long as you find a DM that will allow it."

I'm not defending WotC here so much -- it's their problem to solve. But it does fuel a sense of entitlement. Maybe they should focus their attention on selling the cool new [whatever] to _DMs._

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## Psyren

> That's not Keith Baker's mantra, that's WotC's position.


So WotC controls his personal blog? In fact, his linked statement is *exactly* the point I'm making - _"it's up to you if you want to put it there."_ That's what "anything, not everything" ultimately means. Yet another prominent older D&D player who agrees with my point of view.




> As an example, would you interpret that line as meaning "yeah, even though the gods are not actively present or tangible in this setting, and it's a completely different and unconnected pantheon, and the drow even have their own pantheon and there is no mention of Lolth, yes in fact this setting does have Lolth in it and she is a god and there are drow that worship her". Is that your takeaway from that?


Clerical powers in Eberron come primarily from belief. If believing in a charismatic warforged is enough to gain divine magic. why not joining a cult? Neither are verifiable deities in that setting, and that's fine.




> In other words, there are no closed settings, this entire conversation has been meaningless, and everything is available no matter what setting you're in. Because there's an explanation that can be made.


There are no _published_ exceptions, yes. You are still completely free to make your own, or wait until WotC gets around to making one. Speaking personally I wouldn't hold my breath on the latter, but it could happen.




> This is precisely what is being missed. By fostering this attitude that "sure, this setting has defined parameters BUT pretty much everything _nearly anything_ can work here because of high magic/spelljammer/planescape", DMs are running into bratty entitled players at their home games.


If that's true, then _put your foot down with those players!_ WotC's job is not to police your home, game or otherwise.




> No way, DS expressly genocide'd a number of races via the Sorcerer Kings. Gnome? Gone. Dead. All of them. Many others as well. Portals to the world are extremely rare, secretive, and closely guarded, and not by nice people a PC would likely associate with, it was cut off from the greater cosmology, and inaccessible via Spelljammers. It did not "predate" the concept of a D&D multiverse, it was explicitly set aside and isolated from it. That's definitely as closed of a system as you're going to get, and expressly provided reasons you couldn't play a number of races.


Assuming this is all completely accurate and unable to be changed, that's probably the reason why they haven't bothered revisiting it (yet.)

----------


## Sigreid

I think the most encouraging thing about this thread is that we all apparently have so few real problems in our lives that we can spend 16 pages arguing about a game as if it's important.   Yay us!

----------


## Psyren

> I think the most encouraging thing about this thread is that we all apparently have so few real problems in our lives that we can spend 16 pages arguing about a game as if it's important.   Yay us!


Welcome to... any geeky message board?  :Small Tongue:

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## Brookshw

> Assuming this is all completely accurate and unable to be changed, that's probably the reason why they haven't bothered revisiting it (yet.)


I don't think its a shock to anyone that they aren't chomping at the bit to revive a setting steeped in genocide and slavery, I don't think limited race availability or no multiverse are the deciding factors.




> I think the most encouraging thing about this thread is that we all apparently have so few real problems in our lives that we can spend 16 pages arguing about a game as if it's important.   Yay us!


To the contrary, sometimes we post to distract ourselves from our real problems by reflecting/indulging in our hobbies  :Small Tongue: .

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> So WotC controls his personal blog?


That's not his mantra Psyren... that's the position from the book. Keith declines to use A LOT of stuff in his Eberron games. But, as an example, Keith didn't put Dragonborn in Eberron. Nor did he put Eladrin in Eberron. WotC put those things in Eberron. Afterwards, when all the Eberron fans kept asking him his thoughts, he retconned an explanation that was palatable to him (dragonborn were sent from Argonnessen to guard an imprisoned overlord, Eladrin are from feyspires in Thelanis that got locked in the material plane on the Day of Mourning).

YOUR position is "See, Keith provided an explanation for these races in Eberron, so it's fine and any race should be included in any setting". Which is a specific example of otherwise saying "if an explanation is available, the race should be allowed", which is a longer way of saying "the race should be allowed".



> Yet another prominent older D&D player who agrees with my point of view.


I don't think Keith's view is "WotC is infallible and I agree with everything they say"...



> Clerical powers in Eberron come primarily from belief. If believing in a charismatic warforged is enough to gain divine magic. why not joining a cult? Neither are verifiable deities in that setting, and that's fine.


Sorry, so the _idea_ of Lolth is in Eberron, but not Lolth herself? Can you clarify?



> There are no _published_ exceptions, yes.


Obviously a bunch of D&D players would strenuously disagree with you and your "everything goes because its good business" perspective on this.



> If that's true, then _put your foot down with those players!_ WotC's job is not to police your home, game or otherwise.


Lol, I have to listen to people complain that DC tables will empower players to weaponize them against the DM, and then simultaneously get lectured to get stern with misbehaving players. What an amazing and versatile tool the human mind is...

----------


## Psyren

> Keith declines to use A LOT of stuff in his Eberron games.


Right! HIS games! Just like you can do in YOUR games!




> YOUR position is "See, Keith provided an explanation for these races in Eberron, so it's fine and any race should be included in any setting *if you want them to be. And if you don't, have an adult conversation about it with your players to that effect.*"


Since you were explicitly attempting to state my position there, I corrected it to my actual position.




> I don't think Keith's view is "WotC is infallible and I agree with everything they say"...


Neither do I, nor is that my view. Can we drop that strawman now?




> Sorry, so the _idea_ of Lolth is in Eberron, but not Lolth herself? Can you clarify?


Can I clarify how religions work?  :Small Confused:  Especially in a setting where religions and overt deities have nothing to do with one another?




> Lol, I have to listen to people complain that DC tables will empower players to weaponize them against the DM, and then simultaneously get lectured to get stern with misbehaving players. What an amazing and versatile tool the human mind is...


If you still don't see a difference between "these races and classes are allowed if you want them to be" and "these are the exact DCs for a bunch of challenges you didn't design" then I'm not sure what to tell you. My mind can indeed distinguish between these things.




> I don't think its a shock to anyone that they aren't chomping at the bit to revive a setting steeped in genocide and slavery, I don't think limited race availability or no multiverse are the deciding factors.


Sure, that probably doesn't help. Either way, Dark Sun doesn't exist in 5e yet so we don't know one way or another whether it will be a closed ecosystem.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Since you were explicitly attempting to state my position there, I corrected it to my actual position.


But Psyren, no one is arguing that this isn't possible. We all know that DMs can do whatever they want and can have a conversation with whoever they want about anything.

We all get that. You're arguing against phantoms if you think we're arguing against "DMs should have a session zero, speak with their players, and run their table as they want".



> Neither do I, nor is that my view. Can we drop that strawman now?


I have this unfortunate flaw that when strawmen are used against me I start using them too. It's bad, I know. I've tried curing myself but the power seems to be in the hands of the people I engage with...



> Can I clarify how religions work?  Especially in a setting where religions and overt deities have nothing to do with one another?


Psyren uses EVADE. 

Dr. Samurai ESCAPES.



> If you still don't see a difference between "these races and classes are allowed if you want them to be" and "these are the exact DCs for a bunch of challenges you didn't design" then I'm not sure what to tell you. My mind can indeed distinguish between these things.


I see someone terrified of players on the one hand, so much so that the books have to exclude helpful guidance, and then on the other hand, the sheriff is in town and players are told what's what and have to deal.

So yeah, I can indeed distinguish between these things as well. Sometimes the DM can't handle the influence the books might have on the players, and sometimes the DM can. It all depends on... aligning with WotC, I guess?

----------


## goodpeople25

> Sure, that probably doesn't help. Either way, Dark Sun doesn't exist in 5e yet so we don't know one way or another whether it will be a closed ecosystem.


You brought up Dark Sun as never being an example of a closed system, so do you stand by that or are you now only talking about 5e so we can't know one way or another on its closed systemness? Which is it?

----------


## Psyren

> You brought up Dark Sun as never being an example of a closed system, so do you stand by that or are you now only talking about 5e so we can't know one way or another on its closed systemness? Which is it?


I brought it up as an example of a setting that, like Krynn, had a high magic period in its past where just about any kind of outside contact could be justified without retconning. 




> But Psyren, no one is arguing that this isn't possible. We all know that DMs can do whatever they want and can have a conversation with whoever they want about anything.
> 
> We all get that. You're arguing against phantoms if you think we're arguing against "DMs should have a session zero, speak with their players, and run their table as they want".


So if you agree on that, then why is "my players might throw a tantrum if I tell them no" such an obstacle?




> Psyren uses EVADE. 
> 
> Dr. Samurai ESCAPES.


I'm not "evading" anything. Lolth's cult is a fringe religion, they don't have to be provable or even make logical sense in order to exist in a given setting. Do you disagree with that, or will you continue to "escape"?




> I see someone terrified of players on the one hand,


Who is that? Certainly not me.

----------


## goodpeople25

> I brought it up as an example of a setting that, like Krynn, had a high magic period in its past where just about any kind of outside contact could be justified without retconning.


Do you or do you not stand by the whole of your statement quoted here?



> As for Dragonlance and Dark Sun, while those settings largely predate the concept of a D&D multiverse, both settings have had past eras of extremely high magic that can be used to explain nearly anything the table is interested in. None of these three settings have ever been closed systems. WotC is rightly more interested in supplying "here's a reason you can say yes if you want to" rather than "let us say no for you."


If you do why does the nebulous status of 5e Dark Sun matter for having never been a closed system or help backup your claim that virtually anything could be justified? Anyone interested can access Dark Sun right now to see what ideas hold water.

----------


## Psyren

> Do you or do you not stand by the whole of your statement quoted here?
> 
> 
> If you do why does the nebulous status of 5e Dark Sun matter for having never been a closed system or help backup your claim that virtually anything could be justified? Anyone interested can access Dark Sun right now to see what ideas hold water.


Yes I stand by my whole statement, and I can quote it too:




> As for Dragonlance and Dark Sun, while those settings largely predate the concept of a D&D multiverse, *both settings have had past eras of extremely high magic that can be used to explain nearly anything the table is interested in. None of these three settings have ever been closed systems.* WotC is rightly more interested in supplying "here's a reason you can say yes if you want to" rather than "let us say no for you."


I don't see what's difficult to understand or inconsistent about it  :Small Confused:

----------


## goodpeople25

> Yes I stand by my whole statement, and I can quote it too:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see what's difficult to understand or inconsistent about it


Then show how it has never been a closed system, bringing up that it's not yet in 5e is irrelevant at best and deflection/goal post moving at worst.  For both of the aforementioned claims but the closed system one especially. 

I don't see what's difficult to understand about this.

----------


## Psyren

> Then show how it has never been a closed system





> both settings have had past eras of extremely high magic that can be used to explain nearly anything the table is interested in.


I'm not sure how else to explain this. Are you familiar with the concept of high magic?

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Popping in to reiterate what I said previously; his position is "if it can be explained, anything goes".

Given that settings where "high magic", "space travel", and "planar travel" can explain all manner of stuff going on, it's basically a statement of "anything goes" in these settings.

That's why Dark Sun, a setting that has historically been considered separate and apart from all other settings, is not considered a "closed system". Because magic.

So if one of your players wants to play a plasmoid in Dark Sun, then slot it into that setting's history, where it has never existed before, say that one of the Champions failed to eradicate them, say that they have continued existing all this time unnoticed, and then let your player play them, and roleplay NPC reactions accordingly ad nauseum because now the game is all about your special snowflake player.

Or be a meanie poo-poo head as has been implied all throughout this thread.

----------


## Psyren

> Popping in to reiterate what I said previously; his position is "if it can be explained, anything *can go if you want it to*".


I corrected your framing of my position again.




> That's why Dark Sun, a setting that has historically been considered separate and apart from all other settings, is not considered a "closed system". Because magic.
> 
> So if one of your players wants to play a plasmoid in Dark Sun, then slot it into that setting's history, where it has never existed before, say that one of the Champions failed to eradicate them, say that they have continued existing all this time unnoticed, and then let your player play them, and roleplay NPC reactions accordingly ad nauseum because now the game is all about your special snowflake player.
> 
> Or be a meanie poo-poo head as has been implied all throughout this thread.


I've never said you can't deny plasmoids if you don't want them. In fact, I even specifically said two pages back:




> *I would certainly have no trouble disallowing a simic hybrid or a plasmoid in my Krynn campaign.* But I think a Changeling PC could be a great deal of fun there, and Loxodons or Tortles would probably garner no worse a reaction than Ardlings from the AOM would.


Bold applies to Dark Sun too, if I cared to run it. (So far, I don't see much to recommend it as a setting, but I'm open to seeing how the designers update it if they get around to that.)

----------


## Brookshw

> So if one of your players wants to play a plasmoid in Dark Sun


_Player 1: What's this weird shriveled pile of...I don't even know what it is?
Player 2: Dunno, brings to mind that oozes probably can't survive high temperature environments for long_

 :Small Big Grin:

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> _Player 1: What's this weird shriveled pile of...I don't even know what it is?
> Player 2: Dunno, brings to mind that oozes probably can't survive high temperature environments for long_


Lol

Alternatively, the horror scenario in which a mob rips the PC apart trying to get that fluid  :Small Eek:

----------


## goodpeople25

> I'm not sure how else to explain this. Are you familiar with the concept of high magic?


Do you want the definition of closed and system provided to you? Pretty sure it's easier to find a non strawman version of those with a search engine then to find all these new ways for you to argue in bad faith.

----------


## Psyren

> Do you want the definition of closed and system provided to you? Pretty sure it's easier to find a non strawman version of those with a search engine then to find all these new ways for you to argue in bad faith.


High magic means that other universes are potentially accessible. High magic can do nearly anything the narrative needs it to, that's the point. Even when it can no longer be used in the present day, the effects of it can be far-reaching.

----------


## goodpeople25

> High magic means that other universes are potentially accessible. High magic can do nearly anything the narrative needs it to, that's the point. Even when it can no longer be used in the present day, the effects of it can be far-reaching.


I'm not going to buy your High magic MLM. You said that Dark Sun is not and never has been a closed system and that you stand by that claim. 

Do you want the definitions of the relevant words provided to you?

----------


## Psyren

> I'm not going to buy your High magic MLM. You said that Dark Sun is not and never has been a closed system and that you stand by that claim.


That I do. I'll be happy to resume this... productive conversation when Dark Sun is relevant to 5e. One day soon I'm sure.

----------


## goodpeople25

> That I do. I'll be happy to resume this... productive conversation when Dark Sun is relevant to 5e. One day soon I'm sure.


You were the one who brought it up and you deflecting by bringing up DS in 5e is what started this series of events where you have not debated or conversed in good faith (or being "productive" as you choose to "stealthy" put it). 

Closed does not mean whatever strawman you are shadow boxing now (and dropping when convenient) and whatever you'll be debating then will likely be a similar deal.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Essentially, it's a matter of order and setting continuity.

One side is saying "high magic can explain anything, therefore no setting is, by default, limited in what races/classes exist there".

The other side is saying "settings are limited by their lore, but if a DM were so inclined, they can use high magic to justify a player that wants to play something that doesn't normally exist in the setting".

The former position is, intrinsically, an anti-lore position. Go search for Dragonlance lore and you can read/listen to how each specific race that exists in the setting came about. But the former position says that by virtue of having "high magic", the setting is not limited/closed/restricted and therefore the "real lore" is "high magic created anything published in this setting". The same with Dark Sun, we know what races originated from the original halflings, what races were exterminated during the Cleansing Wars, and which races are still around. That's the actual lore. But, as we've been told, the setting is not actually restricted. Anything exists in Dark Sun. Because "high magic". It is up to the DM to say no, instead of the lore and the setting speaking for itself.

----------


## Psyren

> Closed does not mean whatever strawman you are shadow boxing now (and dropping when convenient) and whatever you'll be debating then will likely be a similar deal.


I defined what I meant quite clearly. You refusing to do the same leaves us nowhere to go.




> Essentially, it's a matter of order and setting continuity.
> 
> One side is saying "high magic can explain anything, therefore no setting is, by default, limited in what races/classes exist there".
> 
> The other side is saying "settings are limited by their lore, but if a DM were so inclined, they can use high magic to justify a player that wants to play something that doesn't normally exist in the setting".


I don't see these positions as diametrically opposed as you seem to. Lore is a living breathing thing, not a stagnant mire.

----------


## Atranen

> I don't see these positions as diametrically opposed as you seem to. Lore is a living breathing thing, not a stagnant mire.


But you contradict yourself; you say they are not really opposed, but if anyone suggests that the "lore has default restrictions" position is better, they are anti-fun, have trouble asserting themselves or talking to players, or want lore to be a "stagnant mire".

----------


## goodpeople25

> I defined what I meant quite clearly. You refusing to do the same leaves us nowhere to go.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see these positions as diametrically opposed as you seem to. Lore is a living breathing thing, not a stagnant mire.


I said I was not buying into your High Magic supplement MLM. Not only did I mean that you are talking about the concept like it's a cult I'm also saying it does not function as an argument.

Explain how DS is not and and has never been a closed (off) system. If you are not using the common definition of closed please provide it and your reasoning behind using such. 

If you need the common definitions of closed provided I will do so but since it's been mentioned multiple times now it will be done with a certain level of exasperation. 

You are not arguing in good faith and don't have a well defined position or argument, I don't need to thinly veil that.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> I don't see these positions as diametrically opposed as you seem to. Lore is a living breathing thing, not a stagnant mire.


Either the setting is restricted by lore, or it isn't. I'm not sure how these aren't opposed viewpoints.

And the lore "lives and breathes" simply to allow more races and classes. This is a contrivance. It's not a natural evolution, it's just a business decision. And companies are free to make those calls, obviously. But some of us disagree with this particular direction, for reasons we've all gone over already.

----------


## Brookshw

> Explain how DS is not and and has never been a closed (off) system. If you are not using the common definition of closed please provide it and your reasoning behind using such.


Sigh.... :Small Sigh: 

Psyren isn't entirely wrong. High magic is, imo, a bad explanation because there are active events which removed races from DS wholesale.

However....

In Dead God's on the bottom level of Arboreal you meet some DS elves that escaped and are running around the outer planes.

In City by the Silt Sea, Dregoth (sp?) has a planar gate device and is brokering a deal with the baatzue for the blood war to spill into Athas.

In Dragon Kings they establish both that other planes have no impact on Athas, but also that you can use magic to travel away from it.

In the Lost Sea we have a region that's, for a given value (not preserving purged species), spared the cleansing wars, conceivably, though not canonically, offering a refuge for some oddities.

Travel through the ethereal through mundane means is still possible.

So, yeah, there are some ways you could shoehorn things in via the normal lore.

----------


## Psyren

> Explain how DS is not and and has never been a closed (off) system.


High magic means elements from outside a setting can be introduced to that setting. Portals, conjurations, mutations, time travel, reality warping are all justifiable vectors, and that's not even an exhaustive list.

If that's not clear enough, fine, I'm happy to leave it there. I've explained myself to my satisfaction.




> Either the setting is restricted by lore, or it isn't. I'm not sure how these aren't opposed viewpoints.
> 
> And the lore "lives and breathes" simply to allow more races and classes. This is a contrivance. It's not a natural evolution, it's just a business decision. And companies are free to make those calls, obviously. But some of us disagree with this particular direction, for reasons we've all gone over already.


I don't see "business decision" and "natural evolution" as mutually exclusive. Just because Weis and Hickman didn't think of a way to include some element back in the 80s, doesn't mean it should be forbidden forevermore, or that there are no benefits to doing so. And even if it did, it serves as a valuable lesson - if you truly want your setting to be immutable by future designers, don't sell the rights to it.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> High magic means elements from outside a setting can be introduced to that setting. Portals, conjurations, mutations, time travel, reality warping are all justifiable vectors, and that's not even an exhaustive list.
> .


No, it really doesn't. At least at its core. There can be high magic settings that _don't have other settings at all_. You can have high magic settings without any of those things.

----------


## Atranen

> No, it really doesn't. At least at its core. There can be high magic settings that _don't have other settings at all_. You can have high magic settings without any of those things.


Absolutely. And "elements from outside that setting" isn't a coherent statement. If another "setting" is accessible in some way, then they're just different parts of the same setting.

----------


## Psyren

> No, it really doesn't. At least at its core. There can be high magic settings that _don't have other settings at all_. You can have high magic settings without any of those things.


Sure, I'm not saying high = open, but it means that open is justifiable.

----------


## goodpeople25

> Sigh....
> 
> Psyren isn't entirely wrong. High magic is, imo, a bad explanation because there are active events which removed races from DS wholesale.
> 
> However....
> 
> In Dead God's on the bottom level of Arboreal you meet some DS elves that escaped and are running around the outer planes.
> 
> In City by the Silt Sea, Dregoth (sp?) has a planar gate device and is brokering a deal with the baatzue for the blood war to spill into Athas.
> ...


Oh absolutely but as you describe it it's still a closed off system (closed doesn't mean inaccessible or inescapable) and was made that way which goes against what Psyren claimed yet has avoided interacting with

But I appreaciate the details and I take it that it wasn't closed off because the multiverse didn't exist at the time like it was initially claimed. 

The specific ignoring of whole settings in favour of "high magic exists" or singular examples of setting details that are contradicted is something that is annoying to me, but I got my fill of thinly veiled insults and the lack of even the pretense of arguing in good faith.

----------


## Psyren

> (closed doesn't mean inaccessible or inescapable)


This is the first time you've even suggested at the kind of definition you might be working with; good enough for me.

----------


## Brookshw

> But I appreaciate the details and I take it that it wasn't closed off because the multiverse didn't exist at the time like it was initially claimed.


The multiverse, and, notably, spelljammer, predate DS; DS/Athas space are canonically inaccessible via spelljamming.

----------


## goodpeople25

> This is the first time you've even suggested at the kind of definition you might be working with; good enough for me.


Ah yes you just forgot common uses of words despite openly refusing to accept or provide definitions in favour of getting people to subscribe to high magic's newsletter. 

It's not too much to ask for you to know this, especially if you insist on insulting other's intelligence. (thinly veiled or otherwise) You should ditch any remaining pretense of arguing in good faith cause I don't believe you didn't know (or couldn't easily chose to know) this information.

----------


## Psyren

> Ah yes you just forgot common uses of words despite openly refusing to accept or provide definitions in favour of getting people to subscribe to high magic's newsletter. 
> 
> It's not too much to ask for you to know this, especially if you insist on insulting other's intelligence. (thinly veiled or otherwise) You should ditch any remaining pretense of arguing in good faith cause I don't believe you didn't know (or couldn't easily chose to know) this information.


I haven't insulted anyone (thinly veiled or otherwise.) That I disagree with an opinion on what should and shouldn't be allowed in a given setting, has nothing to do with the poster behind it  :Small Confused: 




> In Dead God's on the bottom level of Arboreal you meet some DS elves that escaped and are running around the outer planes.
> 
> In City by the Silt Sea, Dregoth (sp?) has a planar gate device and is brokering a deal with the baatzue for the blood war to spill into Athas.
> 
> In Dragon Kings they establish both that other planes have no impact on Athas, but also that you can use magic to travel away from it.
> 
> In the Lost Sea we have a region that's, for a given value (not preserving purged species), spared the cleansing wars, conceivably, though not canonically, offering a refuge for some oddities.
> 
> Travel through the ethereal through mundane means is still possible.
> ...


This rundown did a lot more to get me interested in Dark Sun than anything else in this thread, so thank you for the post.

----------


## JackPhoenix

> I don't see "business decision" and "natural evolution" as mutually exclusive. Just because Weis and Hickman didn't think of a way to include some element back in the 80s, doesn't mean it should be forbidden forevermore, or that there are no benefits to doing so. And even if it did, it serves as a valuable lesson - if you truly want your setting to be immutable by future designers, don't sell the rights to it.


Ah, so desire to have their creation consistent and limiting what's in there is a result of "not thinking of a way to include" all the random crap that accumulated over the years. Right. Because they would totally do that if they weren't incompetent.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> Ah, so desire to have their creation consistent and limiting what's in there is a result of "not thinking of a way to include" all the random crap that accumulated over the years. Right. Because they would totally do that if they weren't incompetent.


Yeah. Because "I thought about it and decided not to include X" is something only incompetents would ever say. Whereas "blindly throw all the crap in and chant 'high magic'" is totally a mark of extreme competence and ability and good quality.

----------


## goodpeople25

> I haven't insulted anyone (thinly veiled or otherwise.) That I disagree with an opinion on what should and shouldn't be allowed in a given setting, has nothing to do with the poster behind it 
> 
> 
> 
> This rundown did a lot more to get me interested in Dark Sun than anything else in this thread, so thank you for the post.


You bringing up differing opinions as relevant to your insults to other's intelligence (you ignored that bit) is yet more deflection especially given the context of our interaction not being opinion based. 

Opinions certainly are involved in your claims being challenged (whether or not it's that dark sun has never been closed, bringing up 5e DS as a reason to not care or you saying you didn't know the common definition of closed) and the discussion thereof but it's mostly you being just plain incorrect.

----------


## Psyren

> You bringing up differing opinions as relevant to your insults to other's intelligence (you ignored that bit) is yet more deflection especially given the context of our interaction not being opinion based.


Well, I certainly can't control what you choose to read into my statements. All I can do is what I've been doing, disagree.




> Ah, so desire to have their creation consistent and limiting what's in there is a result of "not thinking of a way to include" all the random crap that accumulated over the years. Right. Because they would totally do that if they weren't incompetent.


I think leaving it up to each DM what they want to include or exclude rather than mandating such from on high is being eminently trusting of their audience and respectful of their agency. Like the Keith Baker blog example above, the original creators can do what they want when running their own versions of the setting too.

If I were to sit at a Dragonlance table run by Weis and Hickman themselves, I'm sure I would find both pros and cons to their take like I would with any other DM. As many accolades as they deserve for the initial idea, I don't think any initial idea is beyond improvement or evolution.

----------


## Atranen

> I think leaving it up to each DM what they want to include or exclude rather than mandating such from on high is being eminently trusting of their audience and respectful of their agency. Like the Keith Baker blog example above, the original creators can do what they want when running their own versions of the setting too.


Darth Vader is Luke's father. Or he isn't. We wouldn't want to disrespect the audience's agency. 

The DM can *always* do whatever they want. The setting having specifics does not preclude that.

----------


## goodpeople25

> Well, I certainly can't control what you choose to read into my statements. All I can do is what I've been doing, disagree.
> 
> 
> 
> I think leaving it up to each DM what they want to include or exclude rather than mandating such from on high is being eminently trusting of their audience and respectful of their agency. Like the Keith Baker blog example above, the original creators can do what they want when running their own versions of the setting too.
> 
> If I were to sit at a Dragonlance table run by Weis and Hickman themselves, I'm sure I would find both pros and cons to their take like I would with any other DM. As many accolades as they deserve for the initial idea, I don't think any initial idea is beyond improvement or evolution.


You can disagree that you blatantly contradicted the below take earlier by using a singular novel as an appeal to authority. 

You can indeed disagree but it's just as much others reading into your statements, ie not at all.

----------


## Psyren

> You can disagree that you blatantly contradicted the below take earlier by using a singular novel as an appeal to authority.


What novel? Wait, are you pulling in baggage from another thread entirely?




> Darth Vader is Luke's father. Or he isn't. We wouldn't want to disrespect the audience's agency.


The audience of a movie _have_ no agency; that's not an interactive medium at all, much less one that assumes player-driven heroes.




> The DM can *always* do whatever they want. The setting having specifics does not preclude that.


I'm not against settings having specifics?  :Small Confused:  
Example - Eberron is a kitchen sink setting, yet it somehow manages to feel very unique compared to FR, isn't that so?

----------


## goodpeople25

> What novel? Wait, are you pulling in baggage from another thread entirely?
> 
> 
> 
> The audience of a movie _have_ no agency; that's not an interactive medium at all, much less one that assumes player-driven heroes.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not against settings having specifics?  
> Example - Eberron is a kitchen sink setting, yet it somehow manages to feel very unique compared to FR, isn't that so?


What part of you abandoning good faith do you not get, you need to provide it to get it. Also that's rich coming from someone who has stated their insults were merely differences in opinion when I have not given my opinion on anything but questioning your claims. You've got more baggage than an airport.

----------


## Atranen

> The audience of a movie _have_ no agency; that's not an interactive medium at all, much less one that assumes player-driven heroes.


But a campaign set in a Star Wars setting is, and the question is an important one there. 




> I'm not against settings having specifics?  
> Example - Eberron is a kitchen sink setting, yet it somehow manages to feel very unique compared to FR, isn't that so?


Only to the extent that it restricts DM agency by specifying what things exist and don't exist, or are common and not common.

----------


## EggKookoo

> Example - Eberron is a kitchen sink setting, yet it somehow manages to feel very unique compared to FR, isn't that so?


It is? The gods literally walk around and interact with mortals in Eberron?

----------


## Psyren

> But a campaign set in a Star Wars setting is, and the question is an important one there.


I totally agree that major historical events for a setting are important to establish. That doesn't mean it's not possible to ever contextualize, supplement, or in some cases even alter/retcon them when there is benefit to doing so. Now for me personally, Vader being Luke's father is an example of something I would leave untouched, but that doesn't mean it would be impossible to convince me a change there would have no upside or couldn't be handled well.

More importantly though, I don't think "actually, there are some Tieflings on Krynn dating back to the Cataclysm and therefore you can play one" is anywhere near the same level of invariability as "Vader is Luke's father."




> Only to the extent that it restricts DM agency by specifying what things exist and don't exist, or are common and not common.


I don't think specifying commonality is necessary, because commonality has no bearing on adventurers - they're already uncommon.




> It is? The gods literally walk around and interact with mortals in Eberron?


My point exactly? I said they're unique from one another, i.e. different. And Eberron achieved that without banning playable races or classes.

----------


## Atranen

> I totally agree that major historical events for a setting are important to establish. That doesn't mean it's not possible to ever contextualize, supplement, or in some cases even alter/retcon them when there is benefit to doing so. Now for me personally, Vader being Luke's father is an example of something I would leave untouched, but that doesn't mean it would be impossible to convince me a change there would have no upside or couldn't be handled well.
> 
> More importantly though, I don't think "actually, there are some Tieflings on Krynn dating back to the Cataclysm and therefore you can play one" is anywhere near the same level of invariability as "Vader is Luke's father."


But what should the book say about it? "Vader is Luke's father", with the fact that the GM can change anything they want implicit? Or should it say something like "high magic can explain anything. Ask your DM about the specific history of this world".

Obviously the examples differ in their importance, but regardless they show the general concept of setting invariants is a big deal. 




> I don't think specifying commonality is necessary, because commonality has no bearing on adventurers - they're already uncommon.


But what is common in the world defines the setting. If we don't know what we are likely to see over the next hill, it is up to the GM...what is the point of the setting?

----------


## Psyren

> But what should the book say about it? "Vader is Luke's father", with the fact that the GM can change anything they want implicit? Or should it say something like "high magic can explain anything. Ask your DM about the specific history of this world".
> 
> 
> Obviously the examples differ in their importance, but regardless they show the general concept of setting invariants is a big deal.


But that's my point, the _nature_ of the invariants matters when determining which ones should be left alone and which ones can be changed.

In a regular Star Wars game, Vader being Luke's father wouldn't affect anything about player choice - so I'd have no problem leaving it alone. But if instead one of the original rules of that game or setting was something like "only PCs who are children of Vader can be Jedi" or "only the male children in a family can be Force-sensitive" -  I would definitely expect that to be changed over time, either the rule itself or Luke's parentage, so that non-human male Jedi could exist. That is an invariant I would expect them to make variant at some point. 




> But what is common in the world defines the setting.


I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's irrelevant - _adventurers_ are not common in any setting. What is common in the world doesn't need to apply to them.

----------


## EggKookoo

> My point exactly? I said they're unique from one another, i.e. different. And Eberron achieved that without banning playable races or classes.


Ok, you're using "kitchen sink" to mean player options.

----------


## Atranen

> But that's my point, the _nature_ of the invariants matters when determining which ones should be left alone and which ones can be changed.
> 
> In a regular Star Wars game, Vader being Luke's father wouldn't affect anything about player choice - so I'd have no problem leaving it alone. But if instead one of the original rules of that game or setting was something like "only PCs who are children of Vader can be Jedi" or "only the male children in a family can be Force-sensitive" -  I would definitely expect that to be changed over time, either the rule itself or Luke's parentage, so that non-human male Jedi could exist. That is an invariant I would expect them to make variant at some point.


What if a player wants to be Vader's only child? What if a player wants to kill Anakin before he becomes Vader and prevent him from having children?

*All* setting invariants restrict player choice. They restrict DM choice. That is the entire point; the world is not a blank slate. It has features which influence the game world and the choices that can or cannot be made within it. 

And incidentally, I'm not sure why you picked "only male children can be force sensitive"; it is not even supported by the source material (really neither example is)




> I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's irrelevant - _adventurers_ are not common in any setting. What is common in the world doesn't need to apply to them.


Spelling out what is common does not mean the adventurers must follow it.

----------


## Gignere

> What if a player wants to be Vader's only child? What if a player wants to kill Anakin before he becomes Vader and prevent him from having children?
> 
> *All* setting invariants restrict player choice. They restrict DM choice. That is the entire point; the world is not a blank slate. It has features which influence the game world and the choices that can or cannot be made within it. 
> 
> And incidentally, I'm not sure why you picked "only male children can be force sensitive"; it is not even supported by the source material (really neither example is)
> 
> 
> 
> Spelling out what is common does not mean the adventurers must follow it.


Thats actually the basis of one of my longest campaign. I used the end of the Ming dynasty / rise of the Qing dynasty for background. After about 6 years of gaming my players were trying to stop the final invasion of the Manchus into Ming China. It was probably the best game Ive ever DMed. 

If I can tell a distinct story using actual history as background but letting players trying to change history which is by definition invariant, changing things that are invariant in many settings can be the basis of epic campaigns.

----------


## Atranen

> Thats actually the basis of one of my longest campaign. I used the end of the Ming dynasty / rise of the Qing dynasty for background. After about 6 years of gaming my players were trying to stop the final invasion of the Manchus into Ming China. It was probably the best game Ive ever DMed. 
> 
> If I can tell a distinct story using actual history as background but letting players trying to change history which is by definition invariant, changing things that are invariant in many settings can be the basis of epic campaigns.


Absolutely, no disagreement here. I think changing core aspects of settings and stories can make for excellent games. 

The question is, should the setting present anything as core, as invariant, with the DM implicitly allowed to change things--or should it explicitly say the players can demand changes to core aspects to make their characters work (with the DM expected to put in the effort to make it coherent).

----------


## Psyren

> What if a player wants to be Vader's only child? What if a player wants to kill Anakin before he becomes Vader and prevent him from having children?


That would probably require a time travel campaign. Are those impossible? They might be at your table, but not at everyone else's.

For me - Vader and the Empire are important to some big stories... but big picture, they constitute a mere 24 years in the entire history of the setting. A very impactful 24 years, sure, but in cosmic terms that's barely a blip. I can imagine all kinds of Star Wars campaigns where Vader and the details of his family wouldn't matter in the slightest.




> *All* setting invariants restrict player choice. They restrict DM choice. That is the entire point; the world is not a blank slate. It has features which influence the game world and the choices that can or cannot be made within it.


I don't want a "blank slate world" either. But it's likely that I have a higher tolerance for variance / attachment to fewer invariants than you do.




> And incidentally, I'm not sure why you picked "only male children can be force sensitive"; it is not even supported by the source material (really neither example is)


The two underlined examples are things that could have been established as invariants by the creator of a setting, that I would expect to be overturned later when that setting changes hands.




> Spelling out what is common does not mean the adventurers must follow it.


Sure, we agree on that, but then I question the benefit of establishing it at all. If I'm creating a PC, why do I care about the limitations that NPCs are subject to? I'm not making any of those.




> Ok, you're using "kitchen sink" to mean player options.


Yes, I've been talking about player options this whole time. Just like Cynthia Williams was, which started this whole pages-long tangent.

----------


## Gignere

> Absolutely, no disagreement here. I think changing core aspects of settings and stories can make for excellent games. 
> 
> The question is, should the setting present anything as core, as invariant, with the DM implicitly allowed to change things--or should it explicitly say the players can demand changes to core aspects to make their characters work (with the DM expected to put in the effort to make it coherent).


It depends for short campaigns / one shots players would have very little say in my table but for long running campaigns no matter what happens you are working with your players collaboratively telling a story if you want a long running campaign.

My players give me some of my best inspirations and so I try to incorporate as much as they want, while still telling a coherent story. My players could have easily decided to help the Manchus but they chose to try and stop them instead.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Sigh....
> 
> Psyren isn't entirely wrong. High magic is, imo, a bad explanation because there are active events which removed races from DS wholesale.
> 
> However....
> 
> In Dead God's on the bottom level of Arboreal you meet some DS elves that escaped and are running around the outer planes.
> 
> In City by the Silt Sea, Dregoth (sp?) has a planar gate device and is brokering a deal with the baatzue for the blood war to spill into Athas.
> ...


Yeah, it's a question of "Are we playing a Dark Sun campaign, or are we playing a Spelljammer game set in Dark Sun?"

Because there are things that define Dark Sun. Being part of the D&D multiverse is not one of them. Literally every setting has been given that designation. So when someone says "I'm running Dark Sun", yes, technically you can say "Oh that's great, I'm going to play a warforged paladin of Torm originally from Eberron that found his faith on Toril, who then came over to Athas on a Spelljammer", but then technically you can say that about literally any game. That's the point about watering down the settings. The Spelljammer/Planescape/High Magic excuse just means that anything is possible anywhere and now DMs have to explain that actually no, you can't play that character concept, because this isn't Planescape or Spelljammer, this is Dark Sun. 



> I don't see "business decision" and "natural evolution" as mutually exclusive.


Well, you're using flowery words like "living" and "breathing" to pretend that some higher concept is at work here rather than just plain old "we don't want players to be restricted in what they can use because we want to keep selling them more and more stuff".



> Just because Weis and Hickman didn't think of a way to include some element back in the 80s, doesn't mean it should be forbidden forevermore, or that there are no benefits to doing so.


1. No one is arguing that there are no benefits.
2. Are you seriously suggesting that the setting lore is a result of the creators "not thinking of ways to include" other stuff?



> And even if it did, it serves as a valuable lesson - if you truly want your setting to be immutable by future designers, don't sell the rights to it.


No one is representing Hickman's or Weiss' position here. I wouldn't even be able to tell you how they feel about it. We're just talking about Dragonlance lore, and WotC changing setting lore to cram every race and class into them.



> I'm not against settings having specifics?  
> Example - Eberron is a kitchen sink setting, yet it somehow manages to feel very unique compared to FR, isn't that so?


In what way is Eberron a kitchen sink setting that Dark Sun or Dragonlance aren't?



> It is? The gods literally walk around and interact with mortals in Eberron?


Yes, didn't you see Psyren's previous post? Lolth exists in other settings, and if it has a place in D&D, it has a place in Eberron. Boom, slam dunk! Lolth roams around in Eberron, in the Underdark! Kitchen sink setting baby!!

----------


## Brookshw

> No one is representing Hickman's or Weiss' position here. I wouldn't even be able to tell you how they feel about it. We're just talking about Dragonlance lore, and WotC changing setting lore to cram every race and class into them.


If their hissy fit over Soth being shunted to Ravenloft is anything to go by, they seem to be purists regarding their setting.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

I mean... I don't know much about him but he looks cool as hell so... I'd be a little miffed to have him trapped on some dreary dark demiplane too.

----------


## Atranen

> That would probably require a time travel campaign. Are those impossible? They might be at your table, but not at everyone else's.
> 
> For me - Vader and the Empire are important to some big stories... but big picture, they constitute a mere 24 years in the entire history of the setting. A very impactful 24 years, sure, but in cosmic terms that's barely a blip. I can imagine all kinds of Star Wars campaigns where Vader and the details of his family wouldn't matter in the slightest.


In all of this, you're very carefully avoiding the main question: what should the campaign setting book say about Luke and Vader?




> I don't want a "blank slate world" either. But it's likely that I have a higher tolerance for variance / attachment to fewer invariants than you do.


What is an example of an invariant you support and believe does not restrict player choice?




> Sure, we agree on that, but then I question the benefit of establishing it at all. If I'm creating a PC, why do I care about the limitations that NPCs are subject to? I'm not making any of those.


Because the PCs exist within a world, and have relationships with NPCs who exist within that world. The details of that world matter. 




> It depends for short campaigns / one shots players would have very little say in my table but for long running campaigns no matter what happens you are working with your players collaboratively telling a story if you want a long running campaign.
> 
> My players give me some of my best inspirations and so I try to incorporate as much as they want, while still telling a coherent story. My players could have easily decided to help the Manchus but they chose to try and stop them instead.


Absolutely, I also agree that the players can have some say in changes to the invariants, or indeed what campaign setting you are even playing in. 

The question remains: is the default order, as presented in WOTC books: 1) settings have no invariants, players decide what they want to do, and the GM is obligated to make stuff up to make it work, or 2) Invariants are spelled out clearly, and the GM decides which invariants to break in consultation with players? 




> Yeah, it's a question of "Are we playing a Dark Sun campaign, or are we playing a Spelljammer game set in Dark Sun?"


Exactly. If every campaign setting is conversant with every other one, and individuals from Dark Sun can show up in Faerun can show up in Eberron, and the overarching Gods and multiverse and cosmology are the same...then they are at most different locations in the same setting, not different settings in their own right. It's no different than a fighter from Baldurs Gate being able to show up in Thay.

----------


## Psyren

> If their hissy fit over Soth being shunted to Ravenloft is anything to go by, they seem to be purists regarding their setting.


Correct.




> In all of this, you're very carefully avoiding the main question: what should the campaign setting book say about Luke and Vader?


That Vader is Luke's father. Again, that's not the kind of "invariant" _I'd_ have a problem with. Is that still an evasion in your eyes, or are you actually seeing that I've answered you?




> What is an example of an invariant you support and believe does not restrict player choice?


That Vader is Luke's father. I see "I want to be Vader's son" as a much more niche desire than "I want to be a female Twi'lek Jedi during the Purge" which is the kind of player choice they're _actually_ enabling.




> Because the PCs exist within a world, and have relationships with NPCs who exist within that world. The details of that world matter.


None of that conflicts with my position. That I don't agree with every last one of your desired invariants does not mean invariants can't exist.




> Absolutely, I also agree that the players can have some say in changes to the invariants, or indeed what campaign setting you are even playing in. 
> 
> The question remains: is the default order, as presented in WOTC books: 1) settings have no invariants, players decide what they want to do, and the GM is obligated to make stuff up to make it work, or 2) Invariants are spelled out clearly, and the GM decides which invariants to break in consultation with players?


I reject this dichotomy. "Settings have no invariants" is never something I've been advocating for. "Invariants are spelled out clearly" exists today, such as Eberron spelling out that its deities are not explicit characters like they are in FR.

----------


## Atranen

> That Vader is Luke's father. Again, that's not the kind of "invariant" _I'd_ have a problem with. Is that still an evasion in your eyes, or are you actually seeing that I've answered you?


Yes, that is an answer




> None of that conflicts with my position. That I don't agree with every last one of your desired invariants does not mean invariants can't exist.


Ok. But most of the arguments you've put forward are about invariants as such being bad when they restrict player choice (which every invariant necessarily does) not about 'we should have a little more invariance here, a little less there'. The whole point of the Vader example is to show this is not a solid argument. We all agree that invariants ought to exist and ought to be important. That should temper your criticism of people who want a little more, and they should not be dismissed as wanting 'lore to be a stagnant mire' or 'have trouble interacting with others' or all the rest. 

After all, I could dismiss you on precisely the same grounds for wanting the book to say anything about Vader and Luke. 

Moreover, by taking this position, you *also* agree that having a lore book explicitly state invariants will not stop a GM and a party from modifying as they see fit, which rejects your "I don't think WOTC should legislate from on high" argument. You *want* WOTC (or whoever published the SW book) to 'legislate from on high', for details that you personally find important. 




> I reject this dichotomy. "Settings have no invariants" is never something I've been advocating for. "Invariants are spelled out clearly" exists today, such as Eberron spelling out that its deities are not explicit characters like they are in FR.


Ironically, this is an example of something that is *not* invariant under the kitchen-sink-every-setting-is-connected paradigm, as was mentioned several pages ago. This is why you seem to be firmly in camp #1. 

If you have another example of something that is actually invariant and that you actually support, let's hear it.

----------


## AnonymousPepper

At the risk of being accused of playing mod, can I just... like... step in and say something along the lines of "Can we please assume that the other people in this thread are A. not stupid and B. not arguing in bad faith and C. are misinformed at most?" Because lordy, I've seen more civility on /r/politics and it's both really grating to read, and, honestly, for what it's worth, damaging my opinion of forum posters here that I see in my more usual haunts on the site. It doesn't cost you anything to be kind.

That said, I'd like to step in on Dark Sun a little bit, because it's a setting that I quite enjoy and am reasonably familiar with.

Everything's dead, it's some full on Fallout-verse stuff but without the gradual recovery and instead _keeps getting worse_. It's been sealed off from everywhere else quite deliberately, and the only ways in and out of the crystal sphere are either carefully guarded and kept extremely secret, or are frankly just straight-up unicorn-rare. We're talking finding a random door to the World Serpent Inn and then getting out via Sigil by sheer chance random. Even the Gith have buzzed off. The races annihilated by the Champions are explicitly gone by fiat of demigod-tier wizards who have the sorts of time and power and resources to make your average PC wizard20 blush (they're all Epic-equivalent, in fact). And before that they were subjected to magical nuking _twice_ at (mostly) the hands of one very angry halfling god-tier entity who represents the most powerful sealed evil in a can of any D&D setting I can think of (I'd rate Rajaat on par with Rovagug but without any other entities of near-equivalent power to fight him if he gets out, save _maybe_ Borys on a very, very good day with the backing of every one of the Sorcerer-Kings and probably also requiring the Avangions to come out of hiding to help too; that's what you're up against). The only reason _anything_ that's not a halfling survived is because the Champions either developed consciences, realized they'd be next, got hungry for Rajaat's top dog spot, or just didn't want to kill off everything that could be a potential slave for them. In other words, they exist because the Champions _stopped_, not because they got lucky or hid really well.

You can absolutely put a small enclave of one of the allegedly destroyed races in there, and there's nothing wrong with that, but _that is not the default position of the setting as written_. The setting, as designed, has them dead. Dead dead dead dead mega hyper super ultra thrown into a sphere of annihilation dead by people orders of magnitude smarter than them, and with an essentially zero (not actually zero, but dang close) chance of migrants from elsewhere entering. It's on the GM whether they want to alter the setting enough to allow you into it. And, I think more pressingly, if you show up as a member of a long-dead race, you're going to attract a lot of undue attention from the Sorcerer-Kings and the slaver bands and waving _that_ away would require a fundamental change to the characters of existing and, more importantly, setting-critical NPCs, which I and many other GMs are _not_ going to be as cool with, so the player in question needs to be willing to accept that.

And that, I think, is the crux of it. Inserting something that isn't normally there in setting? That's the easy part. Making it jive properly with the other existing NPCs and their known personalities without throwing an undue wrench into everyone else's experience? That's where it gets easier said than done.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

It's a good point Anonymous Pepper, and I agree with you. But I have found that this perspective of "any race should be allowed" generally comes with the notion that "the world is a strange place, therefore NPCs shouldn't respond viscerally to races they've never seen before".

So whereas in certain settings it seems intuitive that playing a race that doesn't normally exist there might be disruptive due to all the NPC reactions/interactions, other people would say "well, don't have your NPCs react that way".

----------


## EggKookoo

My unease with most kitchen sink settings (in terms of races and such) is that it makes it hard for me to accept the place as a fictional reality rather than a game platform. Environments tend to develop an ecosystem, which can be literal, but also can be meant in a social sense. People and tribes and races tend to find niches in which they can thrive, and gradually adapt to the needs of those niches.

I can buy Godzila to some degree. He's an event in an otherwise-normal world. "Oh, hey, there's a giant monster here, whoa!" When they introduce other kaiju, there's this urge to contextualize them, narratively, as a kind of extension of Godzilla. Instead of "oh, hey, there just happen to be an arbitrary number of giant monsters" it's more like "giant monsters have a role (protector of the world, alien WMD, whatever) and the ones we're seeing are all fulfilling their part in that." They exist in balance with each other.

A world with a long history of elves, humans, and dwarves is going to look like something. If you shove, I dunno, sentient oozes into that world and try to claim they've been there all along, I feel like that world's history would have been different. If a setting is built from the ground up with elves, humans, dwarves, and oozes, it could be interesting and it feels like it's showing something about how these different species would compete and cooperate over centuries and millennia (traditions traded back and forth, ancient prejudices, etc.). When one of them is crowbarred in but the overall feel of the setting doesn't change, it feels... fake.

----------


## Psyren

> Ok. But most of the arguments you've put forward are about invariants as such being bad when they restrict player choice (which every invariant necessarily does) not about 'we should have a little more invariance here, a little less there'.
> ...
> After all, I could dismiss you on precisely the same grounds for wanting the book to say anything about Vader and Luke.


Your Luke-Vader example is an attempt to paint my position as "every single player desire, no matter how fringe or outlandish, must be allowed." It's a textbook strawman.




> The whole point of the Vader example is to show this is not a solid argument. We all agree that invariants ought to exist and ought to be important. That should temper your criticism of people who want a little more, and they should not be dismissed as wanting 'lore to be a stagnant mire' or 'have trouble interacting with others' or all the rest.


I think WotC's current stance of "here are the races that are part of {setting}, other races may be available if your DM agrees that they should be, and here are some ways they could be introduced" is entirely sufficient.  They do not need to do anything else. That's the bottom line of my stance.




> Ironically, this is an example of something that is *not* invariant under the kitchen-sink-every-setting-is-connected paradigm, as was mentioned several pages ago.


How so? Where in Eberron are there overt deities in the FR sense running around? Eberron being part of a multiverse does not have to change that facet of its cosmology at all. Even the Cult of Lolth example - the powers of those Drow, in Eberron, would be driven by their belief (just like every other faith there) rather than necessitating that she herself become an overt player.




> It's a good point Anonymous Pepper, and I agree with you. But I have found that this perspective of "any race should be allowed" generally comes with the notion that "the world is a strange place, therefore NPCs shouldn't respond viscerally to races they've never seen before".
> 
> So whereas in certain settings it seems intuitive that playing a race that doesn't normally exist there might be disruptive due to all the NPC reactions/interactions, other people would say "well, don't have your NPCs react that way".


If you truly find it impossible/immersion-breaking to have NPCs react to a given PC race option any other way beyond one that will be disruptive to the game, then by all means, ban that race as a player option, you have every right to do so. Any player demanding otherwise of you should not be welcome at your table. But other DMs who believe they can roleplay that interaction differently should be allowed to do so without WotC tacitly telling them they shouldn't try.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> My unease with most kitchen sink settings (in terms of races and such) is that it makes it hard for me to accept the place as a fictional reality rather than a game platform. Environments tend to develop an ecosystem, which can be literal, but also can be meant in a social sense. People and tribes and races tend to find niches in which they can thrive, and gradually adapt to the needs of those niches.
> 
> I can buy Godzila to some degree. He's an event in an otherwise-normal world. "Oh, hey, there's a giant monster here, whoa!" When they introduce other kaiju, there's this urge to contextualize them, narratively, as a kind of extension of Godzilla. Instead of "oh, hey, there just happen to be an arbitrary number of giant monsters" it's more like "giant monsters have a role (protector of the world, alien WMD, whatever) and the ones we're seeing are all fulfilling their part in that." They exist in balance with each other.
> 
> A world with a long history of elves, humans, and dwarves is going to look like something. If you shove, I dunno, sentient oozes into that world and try to claim they've been there all along, I feel like that world's history would have been different. If a setting is built from the ground up with elves, humans, dwarves, and oozes, it could be interesting and it feels like it's showing something about how these different species would compete and cooperate over centuries and millennia (traditions traded back and forth, ancient prejudices, etc.). When one of them is crowbarred in but the overall feel of the setting doesn't change, it feels... fake.


I completely and totally agree with this. This is the root of my dissatisfaction with "sloppy" kitchen sinks. You can do a kitchen sink without doing this, but it's not only harder the more you shove in there, it's just plain hard to do at all.

----------


## AnonymousPepper

> It's a good point Anonymous Pepper, and I agree with you. But I have found that this perspective of "any race should be allowed" generally comes with the notion that "the world is a strange place, therefore NPCs shouldn't respond viscerally to races they've never seen before".
> 
> So whereas in certain settings it seems intuitive that playing a race that doesn't normally exist there might be disruptive due to all the NPC reactions/interactions, other people would say "well, don't have your NPCs react that way".


And yet, there are settings where that just... wouldn't work. The slave markets, upon seeing a kobold or hobgoblin out and about, would be clamoring to get a hold of one, and trying to get a breeding pair at that so that they could have the new novelty slave in stock for everyone who wanted one. The Sorcerer-Kings would, depending on which ones you're talking about, generally step out of their self-imposed pseudo-exile - they're all focused on figuring out how to level up as a dragon, since Borys didn't exactly write it down for obvious reasons - and take a keen interest in you, which is *a very bad thing to have happen* in a setting where people survive by A. finding a source of water, B. not being an arcane caster, and C. *not attracting the attention of the forced-evil draconic overlords*. Whose general reaction would probably trend towards "Oh, hello there, new subject! Would you like to work for me and accompany me for dinner, or would you like to _be_ dinner? Oooh, I haven't had Hobgoblin Benedict in truly so long..."

Dark Sun is possibly the most extreme example, but many other settings have similar issues for introducing new things thoughtlessly.

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## Psyren

Dark Sun is indeed an extreme example - and as I said earlier, that's probably one of the main reasons why they haven't bothered with updating it to 5e yet (or possibly ever, given that we're almost at the end of the edition with no peep about it.)

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## AnonymousPepper

For sure, but my general point is that there are always going to be cases where you really, really don't want to just give an "anything goes" approach to changing a setting up. It shouldn't be the default assumption that you can come to a table and bring whatever you want to a setting and the GM can make it fit. Sometimes, you just really, really can't, without rendering the setting... not unrecognizable, but certainly greatly altered.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> For sure, but my general point is that there are always going to be cases where you really, really don't want to just give an "anything goes" approach to changing a setting up. It shouldn't be the default assumption that you can come to a table and bring whatever you want to a setting and the GM can make it fit. Sometimes, you just really, really can't, without rendering the setting... not unrecognizable, but certainly greatly altered.


Expecting the DM to "make it fit" _also_ dramatically balloons the load for the DM, and does so in an ongoing fashion--every NPC now has to have a new flag "how do they react to X". The only way it doesn't do this if the DM gives up on trying to make things coherent at all and just handwaves things. That latter path, beyond being bad for setting consistency and verisimilitude, _also_ devalues the racial choices of the players, reducing them to nothing more than cosmetic skins and disconnecting them from the fiction even more. The former path runs the risk of ending up warping the campaign around that choice noticeably. Which is also bad.

Settings should say
R Here are the normal races. Anything from <list> fits in without any thought. No one (in general) looks at them funny.
R Here are the uncommon races. Anything from this list is native to the setting, but unusual enough that people will remark, except in <location> where they might get angry (because those two have a history).
O Here are the non-native races that can be made to fit with minimal changes (noted in each entry). If you choose one of these races, you'll likely be the only one of this race ever seen and will draw remarks and notice.
O Here are the non-native races that don't fit well at all. If you want to play one of these races, your DM will have to do a large amount of work to make it fit and should be prepared for ongoing challenges.

R means "required"--every setting should declare one or more normal races and zero or more uncommon races explicitly. O means "optional"--every setting can choose whether there are any races in either of those buckets. So Dark Sun might have a short list in "normal", another short list in "uncommon", and everything else in "DM be warned".

----------


## AnonymousPepper

> Expecting the DM to "make it fit" _also_ dramatically balloons the load for the DM, and does so in an ongoing fashion--every NPC now has to have a new flag "how do they react to X". The only way it doesn't do this if the DM gives up on trying to make things coherent at all and just handwaves things. That latter path, beyond being bad for setting consistency and verisimilitude, _also_ devalues the racial choices of the players, reducing them to nothing more than cosmetic skins and disconnecting them from the fiction even more. The former path runs the risk of ending up warping the campaign around that choice noticeably. Which is also bad.
> 
> Settings should say
> R Here are the normal races. Anything from <list> fits in without any thought. No one (in general) looks at them funny.
> R Here are the uncommon races. Anything from this list is native to the setting, but unusual enough that people will remark, except in <location> where they might get angry (because those two have a history).
> O Here are the non-native races that can be made to fit with minimal changes (noted in each entry). If you choose one of these races, you'll likely be the only one of this race ever seen and will draw remarks and notice.
> O Here are the non-native races that don't fit well at all. If you want to play one of these races, your DM will have to do a large amount of work to make it fit and should be prepared for ongoing challenges.
> 
> R means "required"--every setting should declare one or more normal races and zero or more uncommon races explicitly. O means "optional"--every setting can choose whether there are any races in either of those buckets. So Dark Sun might have a short list in "normal", another short list in "uncommon", and everything else in "DM be warned".


That's.

Actually kinda genius.

----------


## Psyren

> For sure, but my general point is that there are always going to be cases where you really, really don't want to just give an "anything goes" approach to changing a setting up. It shouldn't be the default assumption that you can come to a table and bring whatever you want to a setting and the GM can make it fit. Sometimes, you just really, really can't, without rendering the setting... not unrecognizable, but certainly greatly altered.


I'm not denying this at all. But surely you can understand why settings that need these kinds of restrictions to work, might be at the bottom of their priority list then? 

For those who are truly passionate about bringing highly restrictive settings to life, warts and all - and want to be paid for the work it takes to do so - DMs Guild exists.

----------


## Atranen

> Your Luke-Vader example is an attempt to paint my position as "every single player desire, no matter how fringe or outlandish, must be allowed." It's a textbook strawman.
> 
> I think WotC's current stance of "here are the races that are part of {setting}, other races may be available if your DM agrees that they should be, and here are some ways they could be introduced" is entirely sufficient.  They do not need to do anything else. That's the bottom line of my stance.


If that really is your stance, then there's no problem; but that is not the stance you have advocated throughout the thread. I suggested this as a solution back on page 9, but we're still disagreeing, so there is more to it:




> Or for an intro to an adventure for a home campaign: 
> 
> Species include humans, dwarves, orcs, half-orcs, elves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves. Other species may be present at the discretion of the DM.
> 
> This language makes it clear that the setting has expectations and the DM has the right to enforce those expectations.


With respect to the strawman claim--the point of the Luke Vader example was not to paint your position as such, but to demonstrate your position was *not* against all invariants, and that you accept quite a few invariants. The fact that you consider it a strawman means the example did what I wanted.  

But, more importantly, what you offer above as the 'bottom line' of your stance is *not* consistent with the claims you have made throughout the thread. For example, in response to this type of guidance being offered for AL:




> I mean saying AL characters in this region are commonly of species X & Y, and Z is rare.





> Again, not sure why they would need to do that. "Lizardfolk are practically unheard of in {AL campaign region}" won't actually stop anyone from playing a lizardfolk adventurer in AL, nor should it.


and later:




> Restricting adventurers in the same way as non-adventurers isn't necessary to achieve that.


despite the fact that the solution in no way restricts players, you bring up 'restricting players' as an argument against it. And again:




> I've made it clear I'd rather it not be there. Just because it wouldn't stop _me personally,_ doesn't mean I don't see potential for it to be obstructive, retrograde etc to AL as a whole.


despite not restricting players, even basic guidance is 'retrograde to AL as a whole'. and again:




> Every _published_ setting _can_, yes. You still have the freedom within that framework to disallow specific races as befits your own sense of immersion/disbelief, without asking WotC to impose your own values on every other table. Alternatively, you don't have to use a published setting at all; you can make your own World of Isolatia that is entirely walled off from D&D's multiverse if you so choose.


the implication here being that WOTC making a statement of the sort you suggest is 'imposing your own values on every other table'. 

I'm not the only one who has made the same point; for example:




> Exactly. Swapping from a "default restricted list" to "default open list" is a _massive_ change even if you can get to the same result either way. Defaults are sticky and set expectations. And an expectation of "the setting and the DM will tell you what's available and it's on you to advocate for other things" is VERY different from "anything goes by default and the DM has to convince you why it's not available and if they do so they're being restrictive, the setting doesn't care".


It would have been easy for you to say "Yeah, PhoenixPhyre has it right, I think there should be a list of species available and a statement that you can talk to your DM about other species". But you haven't done that; the conclusion is that you do not actually believe in the kind of default restricted list you advocate as 'the bottom line of my stance'.

Now maybe I've got you all wrong here, and you really do agree with the default restricted list idea. If so, just say so, and we can move on. If not, I confess I have no idea what your position is. It seems to change substantially from post to post. 




> How so? Where in Eberron are there overt deities in the FR sense running around? Eberron being part of a multiverse does not have to change that facet of its cosmology at all. Even the Cult of Lolth example - the powers of those Drow, in Eberron, would be driven by their belief (just like every other faith there) rather than necessitating that she herself become an overt player.


This has been dealt with previously and I have no desire to pull out even more quotes. 




> If you truly find it impossible/immersion-breaking to have NPCs react to a given PC race option any other way beyond one that will be disruptive to the game, then by all means, ban that race as a player option, you have every right to do so. Any player demanding otherwise of you should not be welcome at your table. But other DMs who believe they can roleplay that interaction differently should be allowed to do so without WotC tacitly telling them they shouldn't try.


A default restricted list is not tacitly telling DMs they shouldn't try.

----------


## Psyren

> If that really is your stance, then there's no problem;


It sounds like we're on the same page now then, and that's all I care about. But fine, I'll dive deeper one last time.




> It would have been easy for you to say "Yeah, PhoenixPhyre has it right, I think there should be a list of species available and a statement that you can talk to your DM about other species".


*But they've done that.* So can you explain what exactly the problem is? I provided the quote from Dragonlance earlier, but apparently that wasn't enough, so I'll expand it to cover the beginning of the section:




> _Peoples of Krynn
> 
> The Dragon Armies threaten all the peoples of Krynn. This section presents information about the inhabitants of the continent of Ansalon and contextualizes the races from the Players Handbook within the world of Krynn. 
> 
> {Descriptions of Mountain Dwarves, Hill Dwarves, High Elves, Wood Elves, Sea Elves, Gnomes, Humans, Kender}
> 
> PEOPLE FROM BEYOND
> 
> Peoples who arent native to the world still might find their way to Krynn. Its possible to find individual membersor even small enclavesof folk like dragonborn, halflings, tieflings, or any other race in Ansalon. Perhaps such individuals stepped through a portal and found themselves on Krynn, or traded with one of Krynns great empires before the Cataclysm. Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn._


There you have it - default PC races in bold, combined with the passage that allows groups to bring in others if they wish. So please, can you tell me exactly *what else you are expecting WotC to do?*
`



> This has been dealt with previously and I have no desire to pull out even more quotes.


Dealt with how? Where? 




> A default restricted list is not tacitly telling DMs they shouldn't try.


Can you clearly describe what is different between your "default restricted list" and what WotC has done above?

----------


## Kane0

> Settings should say
> R Here are the normal races. Anything from <list> fits in without any thought. No one (in general) looks at them funny.
> R Here are the uncommon races. Anything from this list is native to the setting, but unusual enough that people will remark, except in <location> where they might get angry (because those two have a history).
> O Here are the non-native races that can be made to fit with minimal changes (noted in each entry). If you choose one of these races, you'll likely be the only one of this race ever seen and will draw remarks and notice.
> O Here are the non-native races that don't fit well at all. If you want to play one of these races, your DM will have to do a large amount of work to make it fit and should be prepared for ongoing challenges.
> 
> R means "required"--every setting should declare one or more normal races and zero or more uncommon races explicitly. O means "optional"--every setting can choose whether there are any races in either of those buckets. So Dark Sun might have a short list in "normal", another short list in "uncommon", and everything else in "DM be warned".


So in 5e parlance: Common, Uncommon, Very Rare and Legendary  :Small Wink:

----------


## Envyus

I think how Dragonlance did it works well.

----------


## Atranen

> *But they've done that.* So can you explain what exactly the problem is? I provided the quote from Dragonlance earlier, but apparently that wasn't enough, so I'll expand it to cover the beginning of the section:





> Peoples of Krynn
> 
> The Dragon Armies threaten all the peoples of Krynn. This section presents information about the inhabitants of the continent of Ansalon and contextualizes the races from the Players Handbook within the world of Krynn.
> 
> {Descriptions of Mountain Dwarves, Hill Dwarves, High Elves, Wood Elves, Sea Elves, Gnomes, Humans, Kender}
> 
> PEOPLE FROM BEYOND
> 
> Peoples who arent native to the world still might find their way to Krynn. Its possible to find individual membersor even small enclavesof folk like dragonborn, halflings, tieflings, or any other race in Ansalon. Perhaps such individuals stepped through a portal and found themselves on Krynn, or traded with one of Krynns great empires before the Cataclysm. Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn.


This is very different from the default restricted list you advocate in the 'bottom line' of your position. This specifically says that those species exist and you can find them; implicitly, the onus is on the GM to help make it happen. It is emphatically not (emphasis added):




> "here are the races that are part of {setting}, other races *may* be available if your DM agrees that they should be, and here are some ways they could be introduced"


It does not say "may be available if your DM agrees", it says "use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please". 




> There you have it - default PC races in bold, combined with the passage that allows groups to bring in others if they wish. So please, can you tell me exactly *what else you are expecting WotC to do?*


"Talk to your GM if you are interested in playing members of another species. While not traditionally available in Dragonlance, members of this species may have arrived in Krynn via a portal, or by trading with one of Krynn's great empires before the Cataclysm". 




> Can you clearly describe what is different between your "default restricted list" and what WotC has done above?


I believe the above adequately shows the point; I can provide additionally clarification if necessary.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Ah, so desire to have their creation consistent and limiting what's in there is a result of "not thinking of a way to include" all the random crap that accumulated over the years. Right. Because they would totally do that if they weren't incompetent.


 *snicker* 



> Yeah. Because "I thought about it and decided not to include X" is something only incompetents would ever say. Whereas "blindly throw all the crap in and chant 'high magic'" is totally a mark of extreme competence and ability and good quality.


 *snicker*



> Yeah, it's a question of "Are we playing a Dark Sun campaign, or are we playing a Spelljammer game set in Dark Sun?" 
> 
> Because there are things that define Dark Sun. Being part of the D&D multiverse is not one of them.


 This goes back to my line about "and in a different world, stuff works differently, and that's a good thing."   :Small Smile:  



> It's a good point Anonymous Pepper, and I agree with you. But I have found that this perspective of "any race should be allowed" generally comes with the notion that "the world is a strange place, therefore NPCs shouldn't respond viscerally to races they've never seen before"


 I cover the "you will get funny looks if you choose {X}" bit in Session zero.  Our Salt Marsh group adapted to that reasonably well; they embraced that challenge rather than whinging about it. 



> Dark Sun is indeed an extreme example - and as I said earlier, that's probably one of the main reasons why they haven't bothered with updating it to 5e yet


 I think it's due to the devs being gutless.  



> So in 5e parlance: Common, Uncommon, Very Rare and Legendary


 Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and "wait, are you from the Far Realm?"  



> I think how Dragonlance did it works well.


 Which version? How far back?

----------


## EggKookoo

> I think how Dragonlance did it works well.


That's how I do it in my custom setting as well. If you want to play something non-native, you're a one-off mutant and you _will_ get weird looks and clutched pearls at the very least.

----------


## Psyren

> This is very different from the default restricted list you advocate in the 'bottom line' of your position.


I don't see how.




> This specifically says that those species exist and you can find them; implicitly, the onus is on the GM to help make it happen.


What do you mean by "find them?" This is the _character creation_ chapter. Why are you worried about _finding_ anything before you even have a _character?_ I truly don't understand what you're saying  :Small Confused: 




> It is emphatically not (emphasis added):
> 
> 
> 
> It does not say "may be available if your DM agrees", it says "use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please".


So because they don't spell out the basic expectation that you should be running your character concept by your DM before playing it, that means they're saying anything goes and the DM's hands are tied in your estimation?




> "Talk to your GM if you are interested in playing members of another species. While not traditionally available in Dragonlance, members of this species may have arrived in Krynn via a portal, or by trading with one of Krynn's great empires before the Cataclysm".


Literally the only difference here are the "Talk to your GM" and "tradition" parts. Is that what all this fuss has really been about? Seriously?

----------


## Envyus

> Which version? How far back?


The new book with the quote posted by Psyren.

----------


## Atranen

> I don't see how.


You don't see how "other species *may* be available, talk to your GM" is different than "use such possibilities to play members of any species you please"?




> What do you mean by "find them?" This is the _character creation_ chapter. Why are you worried about _finding_ anything before you even have a _character?_ I truly don't understand what you're saying


"It's possible to find members of folk of any other race" is a massive change to the setting and different from a default restricted list. I care about what exists in the setting when I make my character. 




> So because they don't spell out the basic expectation that you should be running your character concept by your DM before playing it, that means they're saying anything goes and the DM's hands are tied in your estimation?


They specifically say anything goes and say nothing about what the GM wants. Obviously the GM can ignore anything they write and do whatever they want. But the expectation is different. 




> Literally the only difference here are the "Talk to your GM" and "tradition" parts. Is that what all this fuss has really been about? Seriously?


Yes.

----------


## JNAProductions

I'll bring back up the example of a Changeling Rogue and a Human Barbarian.
If you're running an intrigue campaign in a setting that doesn't have Changelings, it'd still be much easier to work with the Rogue who has a PC designed for intrigue than to work with the Barbarian character who's motivations are "Smash!"

Yes, some players are patoots. Some players will get salty if they can't play exactly what they want to play, regardless of what the other players (DM included) want. But that's not the kind of thing that's usually solved by changing the rules of the game itself, or the lore of a setting-it's (hopefully) solved by talking it out like reasonable people. And if it can't be solved, it's probably best to not play with that person at all-my way or the highway doesn't work well in a group game.

----------


## Psyren

> You don't see how "other species *may* be available, talk to your GM" is different than "use such possibilities to play members of any species you please"?


Given that "talk to your GM" is a baseline expectation of the entire game? No, I don't. The current language is fine.




> "It's possible to find members of folk of any other race" is a massive change to the setting and different from a default restricted list. I care about what exists in the setting when I make my character.


Just because any race could be justifiably possible does not mean you get to run around your DM's wishes. 




> They specifically say anything goes and say nothing about what the GM wants. Obviously the GM can ignore anything they write and do whatever they want. But the expectation is different.


"Anything is possible" != "Anything goes." You still need to communicate with your DM.

And even if they flat out said "Make any character you want even if your DM opposes you, screw them!" how on earth would they enforce that? Will they be conscripting DMs to the salt mines against their will? No DM can be made to run a game they don't want to run.




> Yes.


If that's the case, I find that to be much ado about nothing, then.




> Yes, some players are patoots. Some players will get salty if they can't play exactly what they want to play, regardless of what the other players (DM included) want. But that's not the kind of thing that's usually solved by changing the rules of the game itself, or the lore of a setting-it's (hopefully) solved by talking it out like reasonable people. And if it can't be solved, it's probably best to not play with that person at all-my way or the highway doesn't work well in a group game.


This. It's not WotC's problem.

----------


## Kane0

> I don't see how.


Its the difference between a blacklist with exceptions vs a whitelist with exceptions

----------


## Envyus

Sounds like people here have overly hostile players.

----------


## Psyren

> Its the difference between a blacklist with exceptions vs a whitelist with exceptions


No - outside of AL, WotC does neither of these, and I am in agreement with that approach/policy.

A whitelist is a list of specific allowed elements, with everything outside it being presumptively banned.
A blacklist is a list of specific banned elements, with everything outside it being presumptively allowed.

WotC's goal with their published settings - at least the ones we've seen released officially to date - is to leave banning decisions up to the table, at least where races and classes are concerned. Rather than banning specific elements explicitly (blacklist) or banning general elements implicitly (whitelist), they are silent on what is banned, leaving that decision up to each DM. As they should.

----------


## Kane0

> No - outside of AL, WotC does neither of these, and I am in agreement with that approach/policy.
> 
> A whitelist is a list of specific allowed elements, with everything outside it being presumptively banned.
> A blacklist is a list of specific banned elements, with everything outside it being presumptively allowed.
> 
> WotC's goal with their published settings - at least the ones we've seen released officially to date - is to leave banning decisions up to the table, at least where races and classes are concerned. Rather than banning specific elements explicitly (blacklist) or banning general elements implicitly (whitelist), they are silent on what is banned, leaving that decision up to each DM. As they should.


You just said you didnt understand, then demonstrated that you do.

Im not here to argue what WotC and/or DMs do, though personally i think this is a binary state where sitting on the fence will default you to one or the other and given the text quoted above (which i do not have a copy of) would indicate the 'default allow' approach, ie kitchen sink in more severe terms.

----------


## Psyren

> You just said you didnt understand, then demonstrated that you do.


I'm saying I disagree with the "difference" as you're framing it. What WotC is doing is neither a blacklist nor a whitelist - neither they nor I are advocating for ether. They are not banning specific elements or general ones, they are not banning anything at all. They're empowering DMs to make that choice for their own playgroups. And for every setting they've published _so far_, that decision made sense.




> Im not here to argue what WotC and/or DMs do, though personally i think this is a binary state where sitting on the fence will default you to one or the other and given the text quoted above (which i do not have a copy of) would indicate the 'default allow' approach, ie kitchen sink in more severe terms.


As I've said previously and consistently, I reject this dichotomy. It is not "default deny with exception" nor is it "default allow with exceptions." It's "you, DM, decide what to deny and allow." It always has been that. (At least, where PC races and classes are concerned, in non-AL games.)

----------


## Atranen

> Just because any race could be justifiably possible does not mean you get to run around your DM's wishes. 
> 
> "Anything is possible" != "Anything goes." You still need to communicate with your DM.


Of course. But the book makes clear that these species exist in every world. It doesn't say talk your DM to confirm that, anymore than I have to talk to the DM to make sure a human is ok in FR. 




> And even if they flat out said "Make any character you want even if your DM opposes you, screw them!" how on earth would they enforce that? Will they be conscripting DMs to the salt mines against their will? No DM can be made to run a game they don't want to run.


I heard something about a strawman?




> If that's the case, I find that to be much ado about nothing, then.


See, you say this, and you've said similarly before. But we both know that if I press you on it, it won't be "much ado about nothing", it will be a very important issue; people who disagree with your choice of language will be "retrograde", "obstructive", or "have problems getting along with others". All of your comments above make clear that you *do* see a distinction. In that context, this comment amounts to a rhetorical trick: "gee, look how ridiculous these folks are, going on about nothing", hiding your very strong opinions about the subject. 

At least that's my reading. But it would be easy to prove me wrong; stand up and say: "gosh this really is much ado about nothing. I guess it doesn't matter either way. I'd be totally fine with a shift to the language suggested and there's nothing unreasonable about wanting that minor change in phrase". 

Given that in the same post you say:




> Given that "talk to your GM" is a baseline expectation of the entire game? No, I don't. The current language is fine.


and not "either language is fine, it isn't a big deal"...

I'm not counting on your  agreement.

Also this gets it right:




> You just said you didnt understand, then demonstrated that you do.


Sorry for the edits, I missed the most recent round of comments: 




> As I've said previously and consistently, I reject this dichotomy. It is not "default deny with exception" nor is it "default allow with exceptions." It's "you, DM, decide what to deny and allow." It always has been that. (At least, where PC races and class are concerned, in non-AL games.)


"Use this justification to play any species you want" is just an expansive whitelist.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> My unease with most kitchen sink settings (in terms of races and such) is that it makes it hard for me to accept the place as a fictional reality rather than a game platform. Environments tend to develop an ecosystem, which can be literal, but also can be meant in a social sense. People and tribes and races tend to find niches in which they can thrive, and gradually adapt to the needs of those niches.
> 
> I can buy Godzila to some degree. He's an event in an otherwise-normal world. "Oh, hey, there's a giant monster here, whoa!" When they introduce other kaiju, there's this urge to contextualize them, narratively, as a kind of extension of Godzilla. Instead of "oh, hey, there just happen to be an arbitrary number of giant monsters" it's more like "giant monsters have a role (protector of the world, alien WMD, whatever) and the ones we're seeing are all fulfilling their part in that." They exist in balance with each other.
> 
> A world with a long history of elves, humans, and dwarves is going to look like something. If you shove, I dunno, sentient oozes into that world and try to claim they've been there all along, I feel like that world's history would have been different. If a setting is built from the ground up with elves, humans, dwarves, and oozes, it could be interesting and it feels like it's showing something about how these different species would compete and cooperate over centuries and millennia (traditions traded back and forth, ancient prejudices, etc.). When one of them is crowbarred in but the overall feel of the setting doesn't change, it feels... fake.


I wholeheartedly agree.



> I think WotC's current stance of "here are the races that are part of {setting}, other races may be available if your DM agrees that they should be, and here are some ways they could be introduced" is entirely sufficient.  They do not need to do anything else. That's the bottom line of my stance.


That's not WotC's stance. And that's evident by the very quote that you posted. IN FACT, if WotC said that outright in the book I think we'd all be in agreement. However, there is no mention of DM buy-in, and you are strenuously disagreeing that anything more needs to be said. So this is inconsistent with your position throughout this thread.



> If you truly find it impossible/immersion-breaking to have NPCs react to a given PC race option any other way beyond one that will be disruptive to the game


A recurring theme in responses to you... I didn't say that. At all.



> But other DMs who believe they can roleplay that interaction differently should be allowed to do so without WotC tacitly telling them they shouldn't try.


And more strawmen. No one is saying WotC should tell DMs they should not try to allow other races in the setting. Please engage with what people are ACTUALLY arguing for.



> I completely and totally agree with this. This is the root of my dissatisfaction with "sloppy" kitchen sinks. You can do a kitchen sink without doing this, but it's not only harder the more you shove in there, it's just plain hard to do at all.


Yeah but... this is the crux of all of these conversations. Player entitlement. Who cares what kind of workload it causes for the DM? This notion makes up like... .0001% of the conversation. It's not even the slightest bit of concern for the other side.

And their response is... don't add a workload, just don't make it an issue. In other words... ignore the lore.

It all comes down to one of these two things... toss out the lore or entitle the players over the DMs.



> Yes, some players are patoots. Some players will get salty if they can't play exactly what they want to play, regardless of what the other players (DM included) want. But that's not the kind of thing that's usually solved by changing the rules of the game itself, or the lore of a setting-it's (hopefully) solved by talking it out like reasonable people. And if it can't be solved, it's probably best to not play with that person at all-my way or the highway doesn't work well in a group game.


The irony of course is that WotC is in fact changing the lore of the settings to circumvent a conversation.


Anyways, let's see what was quoted from 5E Dragonlance:




> PEOPLE FROM BEYOND


Right off the bat we're already told there are "people from beyond". It's not a question, it's an assumption. There are people in Krynn that are not native to Krynn, as the next sentence tells us.



> Peoples who arent native to the world still might find their way to Krynn. Its possible to find individual membersor even small enclavesof folk like dragonborn, halflings, tieflings, or any other race in Ansalon. Perhaps such individuals stepped through a portal and found themselves on Krynn, or traded with one of Krynns great empires before the Cataclysm.


Note, _it's possible to find... any other race in Ansalon_. Again, not a question. The book is outright telling you that you can find other races on Ansalon that aren't native to the setting.



> Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn.


And here's the nail in the coffin. _Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn._

Note the difference between this quote and what Psyren purported his position to be. There is no mention of the DM ANYWHERE in this quote. There is no suggestion to ask the DM, or speak to your DM about it. This quote just flat out tells you that yes, it's possible for other races to be there, and use those possibilities to play ANY RACE YOU PLEASE across Krynn.

And we're supposed to pretend that some people simply can't understand this distinction. There's supposedly no difference between "you can play any race you please" and "if you want to play a race not native to Krynn, speak with your DM about introducing an exotic species to the setting". 

Give. Me. A. Break.

----------


## Psyren

WotC doesn't have to restate the DM's authority in every single setting book because it's already established in core. PHB pg. 6:




> Worlds of Adventure
> _The worlds of the Dungeons & Dragons game exist within a vast cosmos called the multiverse, connected in strange and mysterious ways to one another and to other planes of existence, such as the Elemental Plane of Fire and the Infinite Depths of the Abyss. Within this multiverse are an endless variety of worlds. Many of them have been published as official settings for the D&D game. The legends of the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Mystara, and Eberron settings are woven together in the fabric of the multiverse. Alongside these worlds are hundreds of thousands more, created by generations of D&D players for their own games. And amid all the richness of the multiverse, you might create a world of your own._
> ...
> _Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds, or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world._


If you decide your version of Krynn doesn't allow for playable Tieflings, no PC clerics etc., you have every right to do so. No sidebar in any published book can override that, and restating this ad nauseam every time they make a Races chapter or deign to suggest anything nonstandard is an unnecessary waste of precious text.

----------


## Kane0

Hmm, sounds a bit like the rule 0 fallacy to me.

One book leaving final say to the DM isnt mutually exclusive to another assuming (or even asserting) that all X content is valid.

----------


## Psyren

> Hmm, sounds a bit like the rule 0 fallacy to me.
> 
> One book leaving final say to the DM isnt mutually exclusive to another assuming (or even asserting) that all X content is valid.


That "one book" is the Player's Handbook. Core is required, or at least expected, reading for all players of D&D, and 6 pages in is not unreasonable either. By putting the baseline expectation there, WotC has met its obligation of care.

----------


## Kane0

> That "one book" is the Player's Handbook. Core is required, or at least expected, reading for all players of D&D, and 6 pages in is not unreasonable either. By putting the baseline expectation there, WotC has met its obligation of care.


Very true, yet it does not contradict the words of People from Beyond above.

I think your own sig says it best.

Why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

The text assumes all races are available, and says as such.

Would it be a bad change to reword it so that not all races are retroactively included, and some beyond a set list are indeed subject to DM approval?

It must be said that i personally have no horse in this particular race, but i absolutely sympathize with those that are bothered by it. If planescape suddenly had no blood war because its possible for evil to get along or whatever you can bet id be front and center in that discussion.

----------


## Psyren

> Very true, yet it does not contradict the words of People from Beyond above.


There is no contradiction at all. We have the primary source saying "your DM has final say, even in published settings" and a published setting book saying "all these races are available." So the logical conclusion from combining these is "all these races are available, your DM has final say." 

And yes, my sig is very apropos here, so thanks for bringing it up.




> Would it be a bad change to reword it so that not all races are retroactively included, and some beyond a set list are indeed subject to DM approval?


Rewording is unnecessary, the PHB is clear.




> It must be said that i personally have no horse in this particular race, but i absolutely sympathize with those that are bothered by it. If planescape suddenly had no blood war because its possible for evil to get along or whatever you can bet id be front and center in that discussion.


I don't understand this analogy. How would letting players choose their race and class remove the Blood War? This feels like slippery slope fallacy at best.

----------


## EggKookoo

> Yeah but... this is the crux of all of these conversations. Player entitlement. Who cares what kind of workload it causes for the DM? This notion makes up like... .0001% of the conversation. It's not even the slightest bit of concern for the other side.
> 
> And their response is... don't add a workload, just don't make it an issue. In other words... ignore the lore.
> 
> It all comes down to one of these two things... toss out the lore or entitle the players over the DMs.


I will say as a player, I don't want to play in your "anything goes" kitchen sink world. For the same reason I don't want to run one. Anything goes === nothing doesn't go === stakes are secondary to spectacle (usually).

----------


## Sir Chuckles

> In your homebrew world? I'm sorry to hear that, but as I said, I haven't seen such a thing.


So... are you denying that it happened? Or are you saying that because it was a homebrew setting it's not relevant to the discussion?

Because, as was stated repeatedly, WotC has gotten a bit funky with accidentally supporting this mentality. I really don't think they're doing it on purpose or even indirectly. Just that the culture accidentally formed around it. The little discussion on the verbiage of Krynn points to that. I think restating "work with your DM" where needed is actually a very important thing to do. We've all read the horror stories of players who rules lawyer weird interactions from 3.5e spaghetti rules.

This, I feel, is a similar thing. It's "the rules don't say I can't" but on an awkward social level that is accidentally _encouraged_ by the rules.

Besides, doesn't specific trump general? And I'd say the PHB is the general here.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> Hmm, sounds a bit like the rule 0 fallacy to me.
> 
> One book leaving final say to the DM isnt mutually exclusive to another assuming (or even asserting) that all X content is valid.


 The AL Core +1 plus a few banned choices was at least an attempt to give a nod to DMs and their workload. Dropping that was IMO a bad move.  



> Would it be a bad change to reword it so that not all races are retroactively included, and some beyond a set list are indeed subject to DM approval?
> 
> It must be said that i personally have no horse in this particular race, but i absolutely sympathize with those that are bothered by it. If planescape suddenly had no blood war because its possible for evil to get along or whatever you can bet id be front and center in that discussion.


 +1




> I will say as a player, I don't want to play in your "anything goes" kitchen sink world. For the same reason I don't want to run one. Anything goes === nothing doesn't go === stakes are secondary to spectacle (usually).


 I won't run one, but if I like the other players, I might play in one. Depends.

----------


## Atranen

> WotC doesn't have to restate the DM's authority in every single setting book because it's already established in core. PHB pg. 6:
> 
> 
> 
> If you decide your version of Krynn doesn't allow for playable Tieflings, no PC clerics etc., you have every right to do so. No sidebar in any published book can override that, and restating this ad nauseam every time they make a Races chapter or deign to suggest anything nonstandard is an unnecessary waste of precious text.


This is beside the point. *No one* has ever argued the DM cannot change things if they want!

But again: if it isn't a big deal and it is obvious from the PHB that the DM has final say, why not change the wording that bothers some people to make that explicit? Is the extra 5 words such a massive change that it's worth all this trouble? All it's doing is making something implicit explicit (according to you), which is not a bad thing. Why is it so hard for you to say "yeah, that would also be a fine thing to do?"




> Rewording is unnecessary, the PHB is clear.


A rewording would also be clear (and in fact would resolve much of the 20 page thread). This is a dodge. I don't care whether you think it is "unnecessary"; if the PHB is clear, a rewording would also be clear. Without consideration of what is currently written, does it matter which wording is used? Why?

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Now that the parts from Dragonlance and from the PHB have both been highlighted, it seems like the most obvious no-brainer to me that some language about the DM should be included in the Dragonlance sidebar.

Despite all of the maligning and strawmanning in this thread, we see clearly in the PHB that it is WotC's stance that the DM has final say on what players can play. Given that the language in the Dragonlance sidebar is, at best, misleading, it should be modified to be more in line with the language in the PHB.

The only reason not to make this change is if WotC is in fact changing their position on this. If not, then it's clear as day some clarification is needed. Because "it is up to the DM" and "you can play any race you want" are very obviously mixed messages.

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> The only reason not to make this change is if WotC is in fact changing their position on this. If not, then it's clear as day some clarification is needed. Because "it is up to the DM" and "you can play any race you want" are very obviously mixed messages.


 I'll note from a different post that the gutless feature is becoming more apparent. I think they are trying to have it both ways...

----------


## Atranen

> The only reason not to make this change is if WotC is in fact changing their position on this. If not, then it's clear as day some clarification is needed. Because "it is up to the DM" and "you can play any race you want" are very obviously mixed messages.


It seems the simplest solution to me is that they are changing their stance, and certain people think it's a good thing, but for whatever reason don't want to say it




> I'll note from a different post that the gutless feature is becoming more apparent. I think they are trying to have it both ways...


But we should never underestimate the soulless corporation hypothesis  :Small Yuk:

----------


## KorvinStarmast

> But we should never underestimate the soulless corporation hypothesis


 True enough. G.I. Joe was betrayed by corporate suits back in 1994. 



> Why did Hasbro stop making G.I. Joe?
> Sales soon started sliding, but the real blow came in 1989, when CEO and G.I. Joe champion Stephen Hassenfeld died unexpectedly. Two years later, Hasbro acquired Kenner, producers of the Star Wars line of action figures, and Joe was overshadowed and outsold, In 1994, the line was discontinued for good.


  :Small Furious:  :Small Furious:  :Small Furious:  :Small Furious:  :Small Furious:

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## PhoenixPhyre

> I'll note from a different post that the gutless feature is becoming more apparent. I think they are trying to have it both ways...


Also, the PHB is the old way of thinking, not updated. I wouldn't be shocked if they backed off that vision. They've certainly given lots of signals that they consider most of the PHB outdated.

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## Psyren

> why not change the wording that bothers some people to make that explicit? Is the extra 5 words such a massive change that it's worth all this trouble? All it's doing is making something implicit explicit (according to you), which is not a bad thing. Why is it so hard for you to say "yeah, that would also be a fine thing to do?"


Because I _don't_ think it's a fine/necessary thing to do. Am I not entitled to my own opinion on the matter? You're welcome to ignore it to your heart's content, but repeatedly asking me why my opinion is different than yours is getting old. For the umpteenth (and final) time, you and I are at an impasse on this issue and will remain there.




> By putting the baseline expectation there, WotC has met its obligation of care.





> So... are you denying that it happened? Or are you saying that because it was a homebrew setting it's not relevant to the discussion?


Neither, I'm saying I personally can't really comment on an anecdote I have no perspective on. I'm not stopping anyone else from doing so (even if I somehow had the power to do so, which I don't.)




> Besides, doesn't specific trump general? And I'd say the PHB is the general here.


That only applies when there is a conflict. As I've demonstrated, I see none.




> True enough. G.I. Joe was betrayed by corporate suits back in 1994.


The forces surrounding G.I. Joe's legacy are definitely not something we can discuss here.

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## Atranen

> Because I _don't_ think it's a fine/necessary thing to do. Am I not entitled to my own opinion on the matter? You're welcome to ignore it to your heart's content, but repeatedly asking me why my opinion is different than yours is getting old. For the umpteenth (and final) time, you and I are at an impasse on this issue and will remain there.


You're perfectly welcome to have your own view. 

But you owe us honesty about what your view is. If you *don't* think it's fine, then you don't get to say "it's much ado about nothing", or that you don't understand the difference between "ask your GM" and "play whatever species you please". Because that is the entire issue here, and you clearly understand  that they are different and clearly care quite a bit about the difference. 

Yet every time someone asks you, your view morphs. You say:




> I think WotC's current stance of "here are the races that are part of {setting}, other races may be available if your DM agrees that they should be, and here are some ways they could be introduced" is entirely sufficient.  They do not need to do anything else. That's the bottom line of my stance.


but when pressed on it, when we ask




> why not change the wording that bothers some people to make [asking your GM] explicit?


you respond:




> Because I _don't_ think it's a fine thing to do.


I'm comfortable with disagreement. But I can't stand this level of unwillingness to take a clear stance.

Be honest; be forthright; don't contradict yourself; and I'm happy to have a good faith disagreement.

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## Psyren

> I'm comfortable with disagreement. But I can't stand this level of unwillingness to take a clear stance.


I think it's a waste of time, text, and space to restate something the PHB is crystal clear about. I have since the beginning of this discussion. And even if the PHB hadnt said so explicitly, which it does, the very nature of D&D as a medium conveys that sufficiently in my eyes too. Hopefully that's clear enough.

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## Dragonus45

> I think it's a waste of time, text, and space to restate something the PHB is crystal clear about. I have since the beginning of this discussion. Hopefully that's clear enough.


The PHB isn't the book anyone is talking about though, and not terribly relevant given that a setting book is supposed to give _specific_ guidance and context about a setting and how it differs from the general rules presented outside of context in the PHB. I don't understand why WOTC is so unwilling to define a setting as a concrete thing instead of an amorphous blob here.

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## Kane0

> I think it's a waste of time, text, and space to restate something the PHB is crystal clear about. I have since the beginning of this discussion. And even if the PHB hadnt said so explicitly, which it does, the very nature of D&D as a medium conveys that sufficiently in my eyes too. Hopefully that's clear enough.


At this point one or two lines of changes would be less time and effort than the multiple pages of discussion here.

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## Psyren

> The PHB isn't the book anyone is talking about though, and not terribly relevant given that a setting book is supposed to give _specific_ guidance and context about a setting and how it differs from the general rules presented outside of context in the PHB. I don't understand why WOTC is so unwilling to define a setting as a concrete thing instead of an amorphous blob here.


Expecting players to have read the beginning of the Players Handbook before playing is reasonable. The whole point of having core rules is so that WotC doesn't have to restate baseline expectations of the game every time they make a supplement. And even if yours choose not to do so, just point them to that line if they start to act entitled. That's the big concern here isn't it?




> At this point one or two lines of changes would be less time and effort than the multiple pages of discussion here.


I think you vastly overestimate the degree to which they care about message board threads, even multiple pages worth. Besides, even though certain aspects of these discussions can be grating, overall I have fun posting here, so discussion length isn't necessarily a deterrent.

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## Kane0

> I think you vastly overestimate the degree to which they care about message board threads, even multiple pages worth.


I think exactly 0 items here are viewed by WotC stadf, or I at least assume to be the case for safety's sake.

And honestly, im glad you stick around despite disagreement.

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## Atranen

> I think it's a waste of time, text, and space to restate something the PHB is crystal clear about. I have since the beginning of this discussion. And even if the PHB hadnt said so explicitly, which it does, the very nature of D&D as a medium conveys that sufficiently in my eyes too. Hopefully that's clear enough.


Fine, that's a clear position. I'm happy to disagree with you about it. It is a flat out different position than




> I think WotC's current stance of "here are the races that are part of {setting}, other races may be available if your DM agrees that they should be, and here are some ways they could be introduced" is entirely sufficient.  They do not need to do anything else. That's the bottom line of my stance.


If the most recent version is accurate, I'm happy to note that and leave it there.

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## Psyren

> Fine, that's a clear position. I'm happy to disagree with you about it. It is a flat out different position than
> 
> 
> 
> If the most recent version is accurate, I'm happy to note that and leave it there.


I haven't bothered going back and forth with you about the things you're citing as inconsistent because, simply put, I disagree with all of them. Whatever inconsistency you claim to be reading into them doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. With that said, glad we're on the same page now.




> And honestly, im glad you stick around despite disagreement.


Thanks and likewise  :Small Big Grin:

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## Atranen

> I haven't bothered going back and forth with you about the things you're citing as inconsistent because, simply put, I disagree with all of them. Whatever inconsistency you claim to be reading into them doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. With that said, glad we're on the same page now.


Well, you can give it another read. The inconsistency is obvious. Just write your bottom line position into Dragonlance and we can all be happy  :Small Yuk:

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## Psyren

> Well, you can give it another read. The inconsistency is obvious. Just write your bottom line position into Dragonlance and we can all be happy


The only thing thats obvious to me is we'll never see eye to eye, possibly on anything, so I wish you the best.

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## Dr.Samurai

> The PHB isn't the book anyone is talking about though, and not terribly relevant given that a setting book is supposed to give _specific_ guidance and context about a setting and how it differs from the general rules presented outside of context in the PHB. I don't understand why WOTC is so unwilling to define a setting as a concrete thing instead of an amorphous blob here.


Very good point. A setting book is defining the setting. The setting book is telling players that any race is possible in Krynn, and they should use that to play any race they please. That's how the setting is now defined.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> I don't understand why WOTC is so unwilling to define a setting as a concrete thing instead of an amorphous blob here.


Because they _want_ an amorphous blob. Because that way they won't offend anyone or be seen as "the bad guys". The DMs will. Totally self-defeating, but par for the course for modern WotC.

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## Envyus

> Very good point. A setting book is defining the setting. The setting book is telling players that any race is possible in Krynn, and they should use that to play any race they please. That's how the setting is now defined.


The book says at the same time, they are not native to Krynn in a side bar, as in they are normally not there.




> The PHB isn't the book anyone is talking about though, and not terribly relevant given that a setting book is supposed to give _specific_ guidance and context about a setting and how it differs from the general rules presented outside of context in the PHB. I don't understand why WOTC is so unwilling to define a setting as a concrete thing instead of an amorphous blob here.


It clearly is not, and the question is answered. 

I prefer the options to be open on the DMs perview rather than restricted on it.




> Because they _want_ an amorphous blob. Because that way they won't offend anyone or be seen as "the bad guys". The DMs will. Totally self-defeating, but par for the course for modern WotC.


A player being able to play a non native species does not turn a setting into a blob.

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## Kane0

Something i noticed about the Ardling, there was no details on their phisiology, ecology, culture, etc. Not even an explanation on why they live so long.
Makes it real hard to incorporate into a setting if we dont know anything about them in relation to said setting, especially one that doesnt have a Beastlands.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Something i noticed about the Ardling, there was no details on their phisiology, ecology, culture, etc. Not even an explanation on why they live so long.
> Makes it real hard to incorporate into a setting if we dont know anything about them in relation to said setting, especially one that doesnt have a Beastlands.


You're not supposed to care about anything like that. They're adventurers, which means none of that matters. You just have to bend over backwards to let players do whatever they want, otherwise you're not letting them have fun. And you're not allowed to not have a Beastlands in a "conforming" setting--it's the multiverse so every setting has the exact same "blessed" Great Wheel cosmology. Who cares if it doesn't fit--just wave your hands and say "high magic" and it's all better.

----------


## Psyren

> Something i noticed about the Ardling, there was no details on their phisiology, ecology, culture, etc. Not even an explanation on why they live so long.
> Makes it real hard to incorporate into a setting if we dont know anything about them in relation to said setting, especially one that doesnt have a Beastlands.


I wouldn't expect all those details to be in a playtest document though. They very likely want to nail down the mechanics before they finalize the fluff.




> Because they _want_ an amorphous blob. Because that way they won't offend anyone or be seen as "the bad guys". The DMs will. Totally self-defeating, but par for the course for modern WotC.


If any attempt by you to set boundaries with your players makes you "the bad guy," then your group has conflicts a book can't be expected to solve.

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## Dr.Samurai

> The book says at the same time, they are not native to Krynn in a side bar, as in they are normally not there.


Not native =/= not normally there.

You are adding to the sidebar language that isn't there, as Psyren did earlier when he included language about the DM.

The reason for this is because the sidebar simply doesn't support a position that isn't "players can play whatever race they want on Krynn". Because that's what the sidebar is saying.



> Something i noticed about the Ardling, there was no details on their phisiology, ecology, culture, etc. Not even an explanation on why they live so long.
> Makes it real hard to incorporate into a setting if we dont know anything about them in relation to said setting, especially one that doesnt have a Beastlands.


Incorporate into a setting? What is a... setting? 

The OneD&D setting is "Multiverse". So you're going to make this stuff up on the fly anyway. Because if your Ardling is from Krynn, well, it never existed there in the first place so you and your DM will have to come up with something. It they're not from Krynn then they're from... I don't know, Toril? Eberron? Greyhawk? Athas? Rock of Braal? Who knows. You're going to make that choice yourself too so... what is the culture of Ardlings in literally every other setting? *shrugs*

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## Atranen

> I wouldn't expect all those details to be in a playtest document though. They very likely want to nail down the mechanics before they finalize the fluff.


It may be; if so, this reflects their view that fluff isn't that important and the responsibility of the GM to make up. I recall reading fluff for the cleric as well. 




> If any attempt by you to set boundaries with your players makes you "the bad guy," then your group has conflicts a book can't be expected to solve.


Of course, there are no options between "intractable hostile conflict" and "everyone gets along beautifully."

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## Psyren

> It may be; if so, this reflects their view that fluff isn't that important and the responsibility of the GM to make up. I recall reading fluff for the cleric as well.


I didn't say the playtest document is completely devoid of fluff. But compare the Elf entry in the PHB to the Elf entry in the UA for example; there is no point in cramming even half that much detail into a playtest.




> Of course, there are no options between "intractable hostile conflict" and "everyone gets along beautifully."


I didn't say anything about conflict being intractable. I just think resolving it via human interaction is more effective than expecting a book to do the heavy lifting.

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## Kane0

> I wouldn't expect all those details to be in a playtest document though. They very likely want to nail down the mechanics before they finalize the fluff.


Ordinarily that'd be my take too, given thats sometimes what i do when homebrewing.
But seeing as its a ra... species... and not something like a class or feat, plus this is WotC which should mean a slightly higher standard in theory, plus it seems ecology notes just arent a priority in this edition at all, im inclined to be a bit less forgiving on that front.




> Incorporate into a setting? What is a... setting? 
> 
> The OneD&D setting is "Multiverse". So you're going to make this stuff up on the fly anyway.


Wasnt being a multiverse a drawcard of spelljammer and planescape at one stage?
I guess ill stop before i turn into the pepperidge farm guy.

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## Dr.Samurai

> Wasnt being a multiverse a drawcard of spelljammer and planescape at one stage?


I'm sure it was, and I'm sure it still is.

I like the idea of a multiverse setting myself. But... only if you want to play a multiverse-style game.

I don't like the idea of every setting being a multiverse setting by default. The fact that they seem to be on paper is fine because the DM makes the plot and will decide whether or not spelljammers and planar travel will be a thing in their game. But if the setting book just says "by the way, you can play whatever race you want because this is a multiverse" then it's taken out of the hands of the DM and now we really are playing a game in Krynnspace, instead of just a Dragonlance game.

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## Envyus

> You're not supposed to care about anything like that. They're adventurers, which means none of that matters. You just have to bend over backwards to let players do whatever they want, otherwise you're not letting them have fun. And you're not allowed to not have a Beastlands in a "conforming" setting--it's the multiverse so every setting has the exact same "blessed" Great Wheel cosmology. Who cares if it doesn't fit--just wave your hands and say "high magic" and it's all better.


All the settings released so far for 5e with the exception of Eberron already used the default multiverse setting. 

There is also nothing about letting players walk over you.

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## Atranen

> I didn't say the playtest document is completely devoid of fluff. But compare the Elf entry in the PHB to the Elf entry in the UA for example; there is no point in cramming even half that much detail into a playtest.


I suppose we'll have to wait for the final document to see. 




> I didn't say anything about conflict being intractable. I just think resolving it via human interaction is more effective than expecting a book to do the heavy lifting.


Sure. But you've repeatedly stated that any group that has problems caused by the new language has bigger problems to solve, ignoring that there may be minor issues or tension created even for groups that are doing pretty well. There's some mismatch of expectations and wants even in the best groups, and this introduces another way for things to go wrong.

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## Psyren

> Sure. But you've repeatedly stated that any group that has problems caused by the new language has bigger problems to solve, ignoring that there may be minor issues or tension created even for groups that are doing pretty well. There's some mismatch of expectations and wants even in the best groups, and this introduces another way for things to go wrong.


I'm confident that "groups that are doing pretty well" can resolve a mismatch of expectations without needing WotC to intercede.

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## Atranen

> I'm confident that "groups that are doing pretty well" can resolve a mismatch of expectations without needing WotC to intercede.


It's not a question of whether they can resolve it; it's a question of why mismatched expectations exist in the first place. To some extent, that is on WOTC and the product they are providing. That is a failure.

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## JNAProductions

> It's not a question of whether they can resolve it; it's a question of why mismatched expectations exist in the first place. To some extent, that is on WOTC and the product they are providing. That is a failure.


Can you name *any* game system that completely deals with mismatched wants from players? Give us an example of how to do it better.

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## Atranen

> Can you name *any* game system that completely deals with mismatched wants from players? Give us an example of how to do it better.


No. I'm not saying any system does it perfectly. But systems can do it better or worse. And one way they can improve is by being consistent as to what players and GMs can expect; for example, by telling players to expect to talk to their GM about exotic species.

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## TurboGhast

> All the settings released so far for 5e with the exception of Eberron already used the default multiverse setting. 
> 
> There is also nothing about letting players walk over you.


The official books saying not every character option is available in every setting isnt meant to let the DM win an argument caused by an off-setting option, but to prevent such an argument from occurring in the first place, keep a restriction meant to breed creativity from being seen as the DM being a killjoy. Its the cleanest way to solve any problems caused by the restrictions. Solving them before they start ensures there are no after-effects like lingering bad feelings.

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## Envyus

> The official books saying not every character option is available in every setting isnt meant to let the DM win an argument caused by an off-setting option, but to prevent such an argument from occurring in the first place, keep a restriction meant to breed creativity from being seen as the DM being a killjoy. Its the cleanest way to solve any problems caused by the restrictions. Solving them before they start ensures there are no after-effects like lingering bad feelings.


Or they can do what DL did and just let the DM make the call based on what is native to the settings in a book meant for DMs. I vastly prefer that way then a book saying things are not allowed.

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## Psyren

> It's not a question of whether they can resolve it; it's a question of why mismatched expectations exist in the first place. To some extent, that is on WOTC and the product they are providing. That is a failure.


The only way to remove those mismatched expectations is the whitelist approach - these X races are allowed in Y setting and none other. No other approach will prevent mismatched expectations. And I hope they never do that.

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## Kane0

> The only way to remove those mismatched expectations is the whitelist approach - these X races are allowed in Y setting and none other. No other approach will prevent mismatched expectations. And I hope they never do that.


Or adopting the common/uncommon/rare/excluded model.

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## Psyren

> Or adopting the common/uncommon/rare/excluded model.


I don't think they should be dictating rarity tiers any more than they should be dictating hard exclusions. There are two categories I care about - the stuff detailed in the race chapter, and the stuff referenced via sidebar. The former is more common than the latter. That's it.

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## Kane0

> I don't think they should be dictating rarity tiers any more than they should be dictating hard exclusions. There are two categories I care about - the stuff detailed in the race chapter, and the stuff referenced via sidebar. The former is more common than the latter. That's it.


Well if they are going to write a setting book with the assumption that all races are good to use, at least do us the courtesy of telling us how they all fit in rather than leaving it for the DMs to figure out. Otherwise it'd be something like writing a setting book all about seafaring and leaving out the who, what, where and how of the ships.

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## EggKookoo

> Well if they are going to write a setting book with the assumption that all races are good to use, at least do us the courtesy of telling us how they all fit in rather than leaving it for the DMs to figure out. Otherwise it'd be something like writing a setting book all about seafaring and leaving out the who, what, where and how of the ships.


Or writing a Spelljamming book and leaving out, well, you get the idea...

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## JackPhoenix

> All the settings released so far for 5e with the exception of Eberron already used the default multiverse setting.


All the settings...so, Forgotten Realms? And Dragonlance now, I guess.

Eberron doesn't use the default multiverse.
Ravnica, Theros and Strixhaven don't use the default multiverse.
Wildemouth doesn't use the default multiverse.
Ravenloft doesn't really use the default multiverse, as it's mostly one-way destination, but I guess it can count.
Spelljammer, a disgrace it is, does not really present a setting in its 5e incarnation.

Still, even with the most favorable interpretation, most settings didn't used the same multiverse.

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## Brookshw

> I didn't say the playtest document is completely devoid of fluff. But compare the Elf entry in the PHB to the Elf entry in the UA for example; there is no point in cramming even half that much detail into a playtest.


That's pretty much what I'm expecting, that they'll be further detailed when the actual book comes out, and, likely further detailed in subsequent splats. It would be nice if they added details along the lines of "in FR they're commonly...[x]". It would be nice to see further alien like mindsets similar to OG lizardmen*, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

*Not that a utilitarian mindset is really all that alien. Maybe philosophies would be a better word  :Small Confused:

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## Atranen

> The only way to remove those mismatched expectations is the whitelist approach - these X races are allowed in Y setting and none other. No other approach will prevent mismatched expectations. And I hope they never do that.


Uh, why is that "the only way to remove those mismatched expectations?" I know plenty of players who would have different expectations if there were an "ask the GM" line in the setting book.

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## Envyus

> Wildemouth doesn't use the default multiverse.
> Ravenloft doesn't really use the default multiverse, as it's mostly one-way destination, but I guess it can count.
> Spelljammer, a disgrace it is, does not really present a setting in its 5e incarnation.
> 
> Still, even with the most favorable interpretation, most settings didn't used the same multiverse.


All those settings use the same multiverse. Also Spelljammer was fine not a disgrace, and it explicitly fits in with any setting.

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## ProsecutorGodot

> All the settings...so, Forgotten Realms? And Dragonlance now, I guess.
> 
> Eberron doesn't use the default multiverse.
> Ravnica, Theros and Strixhaven don't use the default multiverse.
> Wildemouth doesn't use the default multiverse.
> Ravenloft doesn't really use the default multiverse, as it's mostly one-way destination, but I guess it can count.
> Spelljammer, a disgrace it is, does not really present a setting in its 5e incarnation.
> 
> Still, even with the most favorable interpretation, most settings didn't used the same multiverse.


You're quite mistaken here. It's in the PHB of all places:



> The worlds of the Dungeons & Dragons game exist within a vast cosmos called the multiverse, connected in strange and mysterious ways to one another and to other planes of existence, such as the Elemental Plane of Fire and the Infinite Depths of the Abyss. Within this multiverse are an endless variety of worlds. Many of them have been published as official settings for the D&D game. The legends of the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Mystara, and Eberron settings are woven together in the fabric of the multiverse. Alongside these worlds are hundreds of thousands more, created by generations of D&D players for their own games. And amid all the richness of the multiverse, you might create a world of your own.


WotC has rolled all current, past and future settings into the multiverse. It's been this way for a long time as well, to my knowledge, since the edition released.

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## Dragonus45

> Can you name *any* game system that completely deals with mismatched wants from players? Give us an example of how to do it better.


Savage world's does a great job setting expectations for when all of its various subsystems and arcane backgrounds and differing races fit and when they don't. Sure it's a bit more generic then D&D is bt default but that just emphasized the importance setting books being specific about what fits. 



> The only way to remove those mismatched expectations is the whitelist approach - these X races are allowed in Y setting and none other. No other approach will prevent mismatched expectations. And I hope they never do that.


That's a little binary, the races left out of the white list may not need to be hard banned and could probably exist on a spectrum of likelyness. Which is exactly the correct way to go about it when designing a setting meant to stand apart from a generic kitchen sink world, with no questions or arguments. 



> All those settings use the same multiverse. Also Spelljammer was fine not a disgrace, and it explicitly fits in with any setting.


Spelljammer for 5e was an empty sad book devoid of any content. All fluff no stuff.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> Spelljammer for 5e was an empty sad book devoid of any content. All fluff no stuff.


Fluff *is* stuff in 5e, but I'll agree that it's substance is still lacking. It's essentially a bare bones "mad libs" version of Spelljammer, which does little good for those who aren't familiar with the settings standards from previous editions. "Welcome to the astral sea, take this ____ and ____!"

----------


## Psyren

> Well if they are going to write a setting book with the assumption that all races are good to use, at least do us the courtesy of telling us how they all fit in rather than leaving it for the DMs to figure out. Otherwise it'd be something like writing a setting book all about seafaring and leaving out the who, what, where and how of the ships.


Ships aren't people, and they generally aren't PC creation options either. Being more prescriptive about them makes sense.




> Uh, why is that "the only way to remove those mismatched expectations?" I know plenty of players who would have different expectations if there were an "ask the GM" line in the setting book.


Then show them that line in the PHB, problem solved.

If that's not good enough for them, that's not WotC's problem, they put it in the book the players were supposed to read.




> It would be nice to see further alien like mindsets similar to OG lizardmen*, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.


_At best_ I would want this kind of thing qualified in some way, e.g. "some tribes" or "outsiders have X impression." Something that distances it away from biological destiny. But if they don't feel they can do that concept justice, omitting it entirely is the superior approach.

----------


## Kane0

> Ships aren't people, and they generally aren't PC creation options either. Being more prescriptive about them makes sense.


Your average setting book is barely 20% PC creation options anyways.

I ask you this: if you wanted a setting book, why would you want it? As in, what would be in that setting book to justify you purchasing it?

----------


## Brookshw

> _At best_ I would want this kind of thing qualified in some way, e.g. "some tribes" or "outsiders have X impression." Something that distances it away from biological destiny. But if they don't feel they can do that concept justice, omitting it entirely is the superior approach.


I'm fine it as a default with a caveat there are exceptions, not satisfied with staying away from it entirely. That's all I'll say on the topic.

----------


## Psyren

> Your average setting book is barely 20% PC creation options anyways.
> 
> I ask you this: if you wanted a setting book, why would you want it? As in, what would be in that setting book to justify you purchasing it?


Adventure hooks and ideas more than anything. I was extremely satisfied with both GGtR and Van Richten's. Both their race and class sections didn't include "rarity tiers" either. Ravnica talks about non-human and non-elf races being rare, but leaves the door open for them to be found there nonetheless.

----------


## Dragonus45

> Fluff *is* stuff in 5e, but I'll agree that it's substance is still lacking. It's essentially a bare bones "mad libs" version of Spelljammer, which does little good for those who aren't familiar with the settings standards from previous editions. "Welcome to the astral sea, take this ____ and ____!"


I mean "fluff" really feels to substantial for it even but it's the best I cab come up with at the moment.  



> .
> _At best_ I would want this kind of thing qualified in some way, e.g. "some tribes" or "outsiders have X impression." Something that distances it away from biological destiny. But if they don't feel they can do that concept justice, omitting it entirely is the superior approach.


An entire wide universe of possibilities and you want to just make every species in us with funny ears or bad Scottish accents? Why shouldn't there be things out there that think differently from us in interesting ways?

----------


## Psyren

> An entire wide universe of possibilities and you want to just make every species in us with funny ears or bad Scottish accents? Why shouldn't there be things out there that think differently from us in interesting ways?


"Differently from us?" There are humans who lack empathy and all the other mindsets too. If you want to roleplay your Lizardfolk that way, I'm not saying you can't. I'm not in favor of all races being the same, I'm in favor of PCs having free will rather than their mental state being predestined.

----------


## JackPhoenix

> All those settings use the same multiverse. Also Spelljammer was fine not a disgrace, and it explicitly fits in with any setting.


If you read what I wrote, you notice I *do* count Ravenloft as a part of the same multiverse. Wildemount (Sorry, Exandria, Wildemount is just part of the setting) has its own cosmology, and with what we've got, Spelljammer can't be called a setting anymore.  And after WotC was done with it, it's about as fine as steaming pile of... hm.




> You're quite mistaken here. It's in the PHB of all places:
> 
> WotC has rolled all current, past and future settings into the multiverse. It's been this way for a long time as well, to my knowledge, since the edition released.


Yes, they did. But no, they weren't already part of the multiverse, which is what I was pointing out. "All the settings released so far for 5e with the exception of Eberron *already used the default multiverse setting*." So no, I'm not mistaken.

----------


## Envyus

> If you read what I wrote, you notice I *do* count Ravenloft as a part of the same multiverse. Wildemount (Sorry, Exandria, Wildemount is just part of the setting) has its own cosmology, and with what we've got, Spelljammer can't be called a setting anymore.  And after WotC was done with it, it's about as fine as steaming pile of... hm.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, they did. But no, they weren't already part of the multiverse, which is what I was pointing out. "All the settings released so far for 5e with the exception of Eberron *already used the default multiverse setting*." So no, I'm not mistaken.


Exandria uses the Great Wheel Cosmology. But I guess I should have added non magic settings as well. Eberron has been added to the multiverse though its secluded and cut off mostly.

Also Spelljammer is not nearly as bad as you are making it out, its biggest flaw was being short.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> If you read what I wrote, you notice I *do* count Ravenloft as a part of the same multiverse. Wildemount (Sorry, Exandria, Wildemount is just part of the setting) has its own cosmology, and with what we've got, Spelljammer can't be called a setting anymore.  And after WotC was done with it, it's about as fine as steaming pile of... hm.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, they did. But no, they weren't already part of the multiverse, which is what I was pointing out. "All the settings released so far for 5e with the exception of Eberron *already used the default multiverse setting*." So no, I'm not mistaken.


My mistake then, though if you meant to convey past tense you should have said "didn't" rather than "doesn't" to avoid any potential confusion. You're *mostly* correct in that case then, before 5e we can't assume any setting was part of the new multiverse direction. Strixhaven was a double release for MTG and DND in 2021 and didn't exist prior, that means Silvery Barbs is and has always been multiverse canon.




> Exandria uses the Great Wheel Cosmology.


To his point though, Exandria did exist prior to 5e, it was first run as a Pathfinder game.




> Also Spelljammer is not nearly as bad as you are making it out, its biggest flaw was being short.


That is a *big* flaw for what is going to be a new setting for much of the playerbase.

----------


## Envyus

> My 
> 
> 
> That is a *big* flaw for what is going to be a new setting for much of the playerbase.


I agree Its a notable flaw, but there is easily still enough material to run Spelljammer games.

----------


## Atranen

> That's a little binary, the races left out of the white list may not need to be hard banned and could probably exist on a spectrum of likelyness. Which is exactly the correct way to go about it when designing a setting meant to stand apart from a generic kitchen sink world, with no questions or arguments.


Yep. An easy straightforward answer. 




> Then show them that line in the PHB, problem solved.
> 
> If that's not good enough for them, that's not WotC's problem, they put it in the book the players were supposed to read.


As I said previously:




> It's not a question of whether they can resolve it; it's a question of why mismatched expectations exist in the first place. To some extent, that is on WOTC and the product they are providing. That is a failure.


It's not about whether or not the problem can be solved by a reasonable group; it's about why the mismatched expectations exist in the first place. In this case, it's because a player has to reference _two_ books (and interpret the relationship between them appropriately) to know what to expect, when all that information could be in one place instead.

----------


## Dragonus45

> "Differently from us?" There are humans who lack empathy and all the other mindsets too. If you want to roleplay your Lizardfolk that way, I'm not saying you can't. I'm not in favor of all races being the same, I'm in favor of PCs having free will rather than their mental state being predestined.


Yes but we use medical terminology and refer to people like then, or me even, as neruatypical for a reason. But I wish WotC would have the courage to take the risk and try and present some races in D&D as being genuinely set to a different baseline from us and portray a culture accordingly as having grown from that. This idea of a "predestined mental state" isnt true of anything I can think of other then outsiders, or things like aberrations/abominations by creature type who frankly should not rememble anything like us anyways if you are going to portray them properly.

----------


## EggKookoo

> I ask you this: if you wanted a setting book, why would you want it? As in, what would be in that setting book to justify you purchasing it?


Primarily, context. Some structure around the civilizations, nations, religions, races/species, history, and even geography of the setting. Why things are the way they are, and why they aren't like other settings. What gives the setting a unique flavor? What special things can you do in the setting that make it distinct?

----------


## Psyren

> Yes but we use medical terminology and refer to people like then, or me even, as neruatypical for a reason. But I wish WotC would have the courage to take the risk and try and present some races in D&D as being genuinely set to a different baseline from us and portray a culture accordingly as having grown from that. This idea of a "predestined mental state" isnt true of anything I can think of other then outsiders, or things like aberrations/abominations by creature type who frankly should not rememble anything like us anyways if you are going to portray them properly.


I absolutely don't want WotC attempting to define what is and isn't "neurotypical" for any playable race, not even humans. Do you honestly trust them to navigate that kind of minefield without stepping in it?




> As I said previously:
> 
> 
> 
> It's not about whether or not the problem can be solved by a reasonable group; it's about why the mismatched expectations exist in the first place. In this case, it's because a player has to reference _two_ books (and interpret the relationship between them appropriately) to know what to expect, when all that information could be in one place instead.


They currently have to reference _one_ book, the Player's Handbook - the one they _should_ be reading anyway. You want WotC to restate the same directive they put there in every single race chapter they print for the rest of the edition, and probably into oneDnD perpetuity too. All to avoid a "mismatch." No, those tables who run into an issue here need to deal with it.

----------


## Atranen

> They currently have to reference _one_ book, the Player's Handbook - the one they _should_ be reading anyway. You want WotC to restate the same directive they put there in every single race chapter they print for the rest of the edition, and probably into oneDnD perpetuity too. All to avoid a "mismatch." No, those tables who run into an issue here need to deal with it.


Plus the player information for the campaign setting they're in. I wouldn't, as a player, make a character using the PHB without reference to the setting. Nor would I want my players to. 

Yeah, I think adding "talk to your DM" in the half dozen settings they've released, a total of 24 words across all published 5e books, is not a big ask when it improves clarity.

----------


## Kane0

> Adventure hooks and ideas more than anything.


That explains it, we are wanting different things from setting books.

----------


## Dragonus45

> I absolutely don't want WotC attempting to define what is and isn't "neurotypical" for any playable race, not even humans. Do you honestly trust them to navigate that kind of minefield without stepping in it?


I would rather they tried and made things interesting than live in the current world we live in, where there are dozens of races but they all feel like just humans with minor cosmetic differences. 




> They currently have to reference _one_ book, the Player's Handbook - the one they _should_ be reading anyway. You want WotC to restate the same directive they put there in every single race chapter they print for the rest of the edition, and probably into oneDnD perpetuity too. All to avoid a "mismatch." No, those tables who run into an issue here need to deal with it.


The PHB itself is kind of optional nowadays in 5e. Even if it were explicitly spelled out in the individual books that rule 0 applies it's still setting a silly baseline to say that all races should be available in all settings and planes. At best I call it lazy unwillingness to put the work and detail into more modern books they used to put into old ones.

----------


## PhoenixPhyre

> I would rather they tried and made things interesting than live in the current world we live in, where there are dozens of races but they all feel like just humans with minor cosmetic differences. 
> 
> The PHB itself is kind of optional nowadays in 5e. Even if it were explicitly spelled out in the individual books that rule 0 applies it's still setting a silly baseline to say that all races should be available in all settings and planes. At best I call it lazy unwillingness to put the work and detail into more modern books they used to put into old ones.


I agree with both of these. And there's no guarantee (or even strong likelyhood) that the 5.0 PHB will remain intact into OneD&D in this regard. They've gotten very far away from the "DM first" mentality and it shows. The Dragonlance statement is the exact opposite--not "ask your DM if it exists" but "it exists unless your DM is a meany-head".

I'll also note that "whatever, DMs, it exists and you have to figure out how it fits" is the exact _opposite_ of what a setting book should do, which is _help the DM run games_. Instead it makes demands of the DM and then doesn't give them the assistance required to fulfil those demands.

Note that it _doesn't_ say "these races may exist"; it says _you can play anything you want and your DM will make it fit._ That's an affirmative statement of entitlement, not a conditional at all. So I don't trust the "well, but the PHB says" crowd at all on this matter--the intent is both unambiguous and exactly opposite to the PHB's statement.

----------


## Psyren

> I would rather they tried and made things interesting than live in the current world we live in, where there are dozens of races but they all feel like just humans with minor cosmetic differences.


I certainly can't control how you "feel" about these races, but saying they are "just humans with minor cosmetic differences" is factually inaccurate.




> The PHB itself is kind of optional nowadays in 5e.


Dragonlance explicitly says you need the Player's Handbook to use it. If people aren't going to follow the text WotC _already_ included in these books, I don't understand why more text is somehow seen as the remedy.

----------


## Atranen

> I agree with both of these. And there's no guarantee (or even strong likelyhood) that the 5.0 PHB will remain intact into OneD&D in this regard. They've gotten very far away from the "DM first" mentality and it shows. The Dragonlance statement is the exact opposite--not "ask your DM if it exists" but "it exists unless your DM is a meany-head".


Yep. I'm very curious (and concerned) to see how this language evolves in the next iteration. 




> Dragonlance explicitly says you need the Player's Handbook to use it. If people aren't going to follow the text WotC _already_ included in these books, I don't understand why more text is somehow seen as the remedy.


First, we've established that you disagree with the wording "ask your GM" being included *as such*  in the species sidebar, so it's not simply a matter of putting the same text elsewhere. 

But even if it were, formatting matters, especially in a game like d&d where multiple 300 page books may be in use simultaneously. If the text is adding nothing new, better formatting is still a good thing.

----------


## Psyren

> First, we've established that you disagree with the wording "ask your GM" being included *as such*  in the species sidebar, so it's not simply a matter of putting the same text elsewhere.


You haven't proposed _any_ new text I'd be okay with yet.




> But even if it were, formatting matters, especially in a game like d&d where multiple 300 page books may be in use simultaneously. If the text is adding nothing new, better formatting is still a good thing.


Is six pages into the core book really that unreasonable?

----------


## Atranen

> You haven't proposed _any_ new text I'd be okay with yet.


Right. Because you see new text saying "ask your GM" as _qualitatively different_  than what the PHB says. 




> Is six pages into the core book really that unreasonable?


Most people use the PHB as a reference book, not reading it straight through. It's nice to have content relevant to a page on the page itself.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Can you name *any* game system that completely deals with mismatched wants from players? Give us an example of how to do it better.


The solution is incredibly obvious and easy. Make sure the sidebar in Dragonlance (and other setting books) conforms with the section in the PHB.

If "the PHB" is all we need to deal with this issue, as Psyren is failing to argue, then books published after the PHB should not contradict it. That causes the miscommunication. Either remove it, or bring it in line. It's not difficult or complicated.



> The official books saying not every character option is available in every setting isnt meant to let the DM win an argument caused by an off-setting option, but to prevent such an argument from occurring in the first place, keep a restriction meant to breed creativity from being seen as the DM being a killjoy. Its the cleanest way to solve any problems caused by the restrictions. Solving them before they start ensures there are no after-effects like lingering bad feelings.


QFT.



> Or they can do what DL did and just let the DM make the call based on what is native to the settings in a book meant for DMs. I vastly prefer that way then a book saying things are not allowed.


That's not what DL did, which is why this whole conversation is taking place in the first place...

DL explicitly tells PLAYERS that they can PLAY ANY RACE THEY PLEASE.

Please let's all agree to accurately quote the sidebar in Dragonlance.



> The only way to remove those mismatched expectations is the whitelist approach - these X races are allowed in Y setting and none other. No other approach will prevent mismatched expectations. And I hope they never do that.


That's not true Psyren... you keep reframing this discussion.

The mismatch in expectations is this... is it up to the DM to decide, or can the player play whatever they want? That's the mismatch that needs to be cleared, and can be, very easily.



> I don't think they should be dictating rarity tiers any more than they should be dictating hard exclusions. There are two categories I care about - the stuff detailed in the race chapter, and the stuff referenced via sidebar. The former is more common than the latter. That's it.


I can't imagine taking umbrage with a setting book telling you the demographics of its setting. What a take lol.



> Well if they are going to write a setting book with the assumption that all races are good to use, at least do us the courtesy of telling us how they all fit in rather than leaving it for the DMs to figure out. Otherwise it'd be something like writing a setting book all about seafaring and leaving out the who, what, where and how of the ships.


Absolutely indeed.

Instead of making the DM's job easier, it instead says "players can play whatever they want, DM has to figure it out somehow".



> If that's not good enough for them, that's not WotC's problem, they put it in the book the players were supposed to read.


Sorry, are you suggesting that players aren't supposed to read the race section of Dragonlance if they're playing in Dragonlance?

Also, it is absolutely WotC's problem if their language is what is causing the miscommunication.



> An entire wide universe of possibilities and you want to just make every species in us with funny ears or bad Scottish accents? Why shouldn't there be things out there that think differently from us in interesting ways?


Because it might hurt some people's feelings on behalf of fake species.



> I agree with both of these. And there's no guarantee (or even strong likelyhood) that the 5.0 PHB will remain intact into OneD&D in this regard. They've gotten very far away from the "DM first" mentality and it shows. The Dragonlance statement is the exact opposite--not "ask your DM if it exists" but "it exists unless your DM is a meany-head".
> 
> I'll also note that "whatever, DMs, it exists and you have to figure out how it fits" is the exact _opposite_ of what a setting book should do, which is _help the DM run games_. Instead it makes demands of the DM and then doesn't give them the assistance required to fulfil those demands.
> 
> Note that it _doesn't_ say "these races may exist"; it says _you can play anything you want and your DM will make it fit._ That's an affirmative statement of entitlement, not a conditional at all. So I don't trust the "well, but the PHB says" crowd at all on this matter--the intent is both unambiguous and exactly opposite to the PHB's statement.


Exactly on point.

----------


## Psyren

> Right. Because you see new text saying "ask your GM" as _qualitatively different_  than what the PHB says.


*No, I don't.* I've explictly said that IS what the PHB is saying, and therefore that your desire that it be restated ad nauseam in other books is wholly redundant.

(Incidentally, this is a textbook example of why I haven't taken your assertions of my "inconsistencies" seriously.)




> Most people use the PHB as a reference book, not reading it straight through. It's nice to have content relevant to a page on the page itself.


*6 pages in* is "straight through?" Who is being unreasonable here?

----------


## Envyus

> That's not what DL did, which is why this whole conversation is taking place in the first place...
> 
> DL explicitly tells PLAYERS that they can PLAY ANY RACE THEY PLEASE.
> 
> Please let's all agree to accurately quote the sidebar in Dragonlance.


No it tells DMs that, as its a DM book. 

I read the side bar. And as the core books say the DM is ultimate arbiter, that means its the DMs ultimate choice what to include. Which is how it should be.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

I am extremely skeptical, but without access to the book I can only assume.

But yeah, I am guessing that the section with new races, subclasses, and feats, is meant for the players to read, as opposed to exclusively for the DM. This smells like another very weak argument to defend an indefensible position.




> Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn.


It's possible this is telling the DM to "play characters of any race" they please, but I doubt it.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> I am extremely skeptical, but without access to the book I can only assume.
> 
> But yeah, I am guessing that the section with new races, subclasses, and feats, is meant for the players to read, as opposed to exclusively for the DM. This smells like another very weak argument to defend an indefensible position.
> 
> 
> It's possible this is telling the DM to "play characters of any race" they please, but I doubt it.


The PHB uses similar wording during character creation, never does it actually say you must ask your DM to choose a race. if we follow this logic then we have to accept that _all_ options are permissions to the players unless they explicitly say otherwise. That's not how I think a reasonable group would interpret things, your DM is the arbiter of the rules and that includes character creation.

Whether the content is intended to be player or DM facing is not where you get permission to use it.

----------


## Psyren

> It's possible this is telling the DM to "play characters of any race" they please, but I doubt it.


The book has both player and DM-facing sections, but the very reasonable assumption on WotC's part is that both sides won't be at each other's throats at most tables. _Their job is not to plan for the fringes that are._ If you feel they need to change that, feel free to create a petition or @ their social media accounts or something.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> The PHB uses similar wording during character creation, never does it actually say you must ask your DM to choose a race. if we follow this logic then we have to accept that _all_ options are permissions to the players unless they explicitly say otherwise. That's not how I think a reasonable group would interpret things, your DM is the arbiter of the rules and that includes character creation.
> 
> Whether the content is intended to be player or DM facing is not where you get permission to use it.


The PHB literally tells you that some worlds have unique races or don't have some of the races, and that it is ultimately up to the DM.

The Dragonlance book says something opposite to that. The section doesn't matter, I didn't bring that up initially. The point is the wording is contrary to the PHB.

You have to choose whether the language in the Dragonlance sidebar is in alignment with the PHB, contrary to the PHB, or meaningless. If in alignment, adding DM authority would be perfectly harmless. If contrary to the PHB, adding language to clarify would correct the error. If meaningless, then just remove it so it isn't confusing to some players.

There really isn't a case where you get to argue strenuously to leave it as is and also make the claim that it won't cause confusion, because it is clearly saying something different than the PHB. Note that it might also confuse DMs as well.

[Interestingly enough, the PHB not only makes it clear that the DM decides, but also which races are uncommon, and also mentions that NPCs might react to them accordingly. As we argue about race inclusion in settings, we've seen that the same people that want these settings to be wide open for races, also DO NOT want any information about how common or uncommon they might be, or how NPCs might react to them. So it does seem the winds are changing to accommodate these _everything goes/don't stop me now_ types of players.]



> The book has both player and DM-facing sections


See Psyren... this is what bothers people. You emphasized earlier that the PHB is the book players should actually be reading, implying that they shouldn't even be reading the sidebar that you originally quoted. When I pushed back on this, you reply with this little comment here, indicating you knew that players would be reading that section, but chose to imply otherwise to win a rhetorical point. Grimy.



> but the very reasonable assumption on WotC's part is that both sides won't be at each other's throats at most tables.


You don't know what WotC is assuming.

It is very reasonable to point out that "ultimately the DM is the authority" and "play whatever race you please" are two different messages and a clarification of a sentence or two would easily clear it up with no harm. Especially when one book is almost a decade old and the other came out this year.



> If you feel they need to change that, feel free to create a petition or @ their social media accounts or something.


These throw away lines that you tack on at the end of each post implying that your opponents are unreasonable or overly harsh or ignorant or need to sod off are not helpful. I know it's not against the rules to post them, so you get away with it, but it is against human decency so, think about ending your posts in a different way.

----------


## Psyren

> See Psyren... this is what bothers people. You emphasized earlier that the PHB is the book players should actually be reading,


By "the book" I meant Dragonlance in this context, i.e. the sidebar you were literally just quoting. See Dr. Samurai, _This_ is what bothers _me_.




> You don't know what WotC is assuming.


I never said I _knew_, I'm reasoning it. Hence "reasonable."




> These throw away lines that you tack on at the end of each post implying that your opponents are unreasonable or overly harsh or ignorant or need to sod off are not helpful. I know it's not against the rules to post them, so you get away with it, but it is against human decency so, think about ending your posts in a different way.


I'm not telling you or anyone to "sod off", I'm genuinely suggesting a course of action that might actually yield the change you want. Nothing you post here is likely to even be seen by WotC, let alone result in a change to the books. If you're choosing to read some kind of hostility into that, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I can assure there is none.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> The PHB literally tells you that some worlds have unique races or don't have some of the races, and that it is ultimately up to the DM.


I'm looking through the entirety of Chapter 2: Races and the *only* mention of a DM or Dungeon Master is under Variant Human.

My point, if you'll go back to it, is that we're being choosy here. If you're ignoring the introduction of the PHB for character creation in the Dragonlance book, that same logic should be fair to apply to ignoring it for the character creation section of the PHB as well. You kind of need the intro to the PHB to understand "how to play" as it literally hold the rules for "how to play". If a newer book says "any race _can_ end up here" that doesn't mean "I can ignore the DM if he says otherwise".

It's not at all contrary because *all*, and I want to stress this explicitly, with vehemence and with the most emphasis I can possibly muster through text communication, *all* features of the game require the DM's buy in because at the end of the day you _simply can't play_ if they aren't on board with your choices.

The mismatch of expectations under discussion here should be non-existent. There shouldn't have to be a continuous and repeated mention that your choices need to go through the DM because it's one of the core default expectations of the game. It's not about being hostile, restrictive or holding animosity towards anyone or anything, it's about communicating to play the game.

----------


## Atranen

> *No, I don't.* I've explictly said that IS what the PHB is saying, and therefore that your desire that it be restated ad nauseam in other books is wholly redundant.


Ok. I could go back and explain why I think this differs from what you previously said, but maybe we can be more direct. Are you saying here that your _only_ issue with the wording is that it's an unnecessary formatting thing? That the word economy of adding 'ask your GM' is so inefficient that the entire idea is unconscionable? 

Or does this formatting actually have an effect at the table that bothers you? Several posts before have implied you think it _will_ influence behavior in a bad way. 

See, I get why people on my side of this issue feel so strongly about it. We think that there is something of substance here, that the difference between these phrases causes real problems at the table. But if this really is just a formatting thing for you, I don't get why you feel so strongly about it. Perhaps that's why I've had trouble understanding your position. I don't know anyone who goes through these reference books with a fine-toothed comb looking for any chance to save a few words, to cut any redundant text. But perhaps you do, and I can appreciate that position. 




> *6 pages in* is "straight through?" Who is being unreasonable here?


I find I most commonly read the class sections, the equipment pages, and the chapters on combat and magic. Page 6 is not something I reference frequently. 




> The book has both player and DM-facing sections, but the very reasonable assumption on WotC's part is that both sides won't be at each other's throats at most tables. _Their job is not to plan for the fringes that are._ If you feel they need to change that, feel free to create a petition or @ their social media accounts or something.


Tables don't need to be 'at each other's throats' for mismatched expectations to cause problems. 




> There really isn't a case where you get to argue strenuously to leave it as is and also make the claim that it won't cause confusion, because it is clearly saying something different than the PHB. Note that it might also confuse DMs as well.
> 
> [Interestingly enough, the PHB not only makes it clear that the DM decides, but also which races are uncommon, and also mentions that NPCs might react to them accordingly. As we argue about race inclusion in settings, we've seen that the same people that want these settings to be wide open for races, also DO NOT want any information about how common or uncommon they might be, or how NPCs might react to them. So it does seem the winds are changing to accommodate these _everything goes/don't stop me now_ types of players.]


Yep. There are very clear differences between the positions. 




> By "the book" I meant Dragonlance in this context, i.e. the sidebar you were literally just quoting. See Dr. Samurai, _This_ is what bothers _me_.


Dr. Samurai's post understood you accurately. 




> It's not at all contrary because *all*, and I want to stress this explicitly, with vehemence and with the most emphasis I can possibly muster through text communication, *all* features of the game require the DM's buy in because at the end of the day you _simply can't play_ if they aren't on board with your choices.


We've been pretty clear that we agree with this. 




> The mismatch of expectations under discussion here should be non-existent. There shouldn't have to be a continuous and repeated mention that your choices need to go through the DM because it's one of the core default expectations of the game. It's not about being hostile, restrictive or holding animosity towards anyone or anything, it's about communicating to play the game.


Things don't always work out the way they should. Reminders now and again are helpful. 

Do you think there are any bad effects caused by a reminder here?

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> Things don't always work out the way they should. Reminders now and again are helpful. 
> 
> Do you think there are any bad effects caused by a reminder here?


If this were any general rule I'd say fair and move on, but this isn't just a general rule, it's _the_ rule. No, there wouldn't be any bad effects but there is such a thing as excess redundancy.

The only way you get to have the expectation that Dragonlance is giving you permission to override your DM is if that's the first piece of 5e content you've read on your own and have either intuited (not something commonplace) how to actually create a character from scratch, which means your expectations could very well be considered incorrect in the first place or were taught by someone who at this stage would be rightly considered "unreliable" for not having shared with you the importance of a DM's role in character creation.

We could go through what I would consider a litmus test for whether content is appropriately specific in its intentions - use only the basic rules and the content in question. The basic rules are free and encapsulates what the designers think is the core parts of the ruleset to play the game. In this case we end up in the exact same spot we would with a PHB and DMG in hand. Now observe only the content in question, if you can't manage a playable version of the game using only that book then you _must_ at least observe the basic rules to get the rest of the gameplay loop filled in.

If you are aware of the core aspects of the rules, there should be no chance for these mismatched expectations. In this instance, there's no reasonable excuse to be unaware of them because they're found in the free and available to everyone basic rules. You're not going to manage a very playable version of 5e without at least one person on the group encountering at least a brief overview of these expectations.

Final note - the book actually does remind you. The very first section of the Character Creation chapter has the following line:



> This chapter presents player-facing details of peoples and groups in Krynn, *as well as character options supplementing the rules in the Players Handbook.* Herein, youll find the following sections:


They do not override the Player's handbook rules, they function in tandem. It's even specific about whether this is intended to be DM or Player Facing content, which in my looking through other books to collect my thoughts on I found was actually very common. It appears WotC does offer ample reminder, even if I personally don't think it's necessary, and it still goes unnoticed.

----------


## Psyren

> Ok. I could go back and explain why I think this differs from what you previously said, but maybe we can be more direct. Are you saying here that your _only_ issue with the wording is that it's an unnecessary formatting thing? That the word economy of adding 'ask your GM' is so inefficient that the entire idea is unconscionable?


No, the unnecessary/extraneous nature of the text is not my _only_ issue with this.




> I find I most commonly read the class sections, the equipment pages, and the chapters on combat and magic. Page 6 is not something I reference frequently.


And you have every right to skip whatever text you want, but it's not WotC's problem if you do so. Also, everything ProsecutorGodot said.




> Tables don't need to be 'at each other's throats' for mismatched expectations to cause problems.


WotC's job isn't to solve every problem that can possibly arise at a table due to mismatched expectations either. That's much more the DM's job.




> Dr. Samurai's post understood you accurately.


Addressed.

----------


## animewatcha

So going by comments section on youtube in areas, it is being said that groupings like Critical Role will have negotiating power in regards to the OGL thing. Has any of the cast of CR made any public comments on it or have they pretty much been mum due to contracts and legalese?

----------


## Atranen

> The only way you get to have the expectation that Dragonlance is giving you permission to override your DM is if that's the first piece of 5e content you've read on your own and have either intuited (not something commonplace) how to actually create a character from scratch, which means your expectations could very well be considered incorrect in the first place or were taught by someone who at this stage would be rightly considered "unreliable" for not having shared with you the importance of a DM's role in character creation.


I am not arguing nor am I concerned that anyone thinks Dragonlance is saying they can override their DM.




> If you are aware of the core aspects of the rules, there should be no chance for these mismatched expectations. In this instance, there's no reasonable excuse to be unaware of them because they're found in the free and available to everyone basic rules. You're not going to manage a very playable version of 5e without at least one person on the group encountering at least a brief overview of these expectations.


I'm concerned you misunderstand me, so I will restate my point. The issue is not that anyone is going to throw "the GM gets final say" out the window as a result of the setting. The concern is that they will think all species are default playable, absent other guidance from the GM, and will *expect* to play species X in setting Y prior to speaking to the GM, only to find this is not what the GM wants. 

You may think this unreasonable -- shouldn't they always ask the GM first? But I would expect to play, say, a human in FR without explicitly asking. If a GM changed that, I would expect them to tell me. So there is a tension point. Perhaps you think it's minor, but I have encountered it, the solution I suggest would address it, and no one has shown any ill effects of my solution (besides excess redundancy or undesired formatting, which...I don't buy, as I think a reminder is helpful, not unnecessary).




> Final note - the book actually does remind you. The very first section of the Character Creation chapter has the following line:


This is much more generic (and therefore worse, as it doesn't provide an explicit reminder) than my proposed solution. 




> No, the unnecessary/extraneous nature of the text is not my _only_ issue with this.


In that case, you _do_ see a qualitative difference between the line in the PHB and "ask your GM" in the species section--either in content or in how they will be interpreted. If there were no difference, your complaint would be formatting only. It is not, so there is a difference. 

Fine! You're welcome to that opinion. Maybe you think adding "ask your GM" to the species section will discourage players from asking, or something. But let's focus on that, rather than formatting concerns, because it is the real substance of the matter? I feel most of what you've written is about it being "unnecessary" or other formatting concerns.




> And you have every right to skip whatever text you want, but it's not WotC's problem if you do so. Also, everything ProsecutorGodot said.


ProsecutorGodot at least believes that there would not be bad effects besides excess redundancy -- i.e., a formatting concern. 




> WotC's job isn't to solve every problem that can possibly arise at a table due to mismatched expectations either. That's much more the DM's job.


I never asserted that (and have explicitly rejected it).

----------


## Psyren

> Fine! You're welcome to that opinion. Maybe you think adding "ask your GM" to the species section will discourage players from asking, or something. But let's focus on that, rather than formatting concerns, because it is the real substance of the matter? I feel most of what you've written is about it being "unnecessary" or other formatting concerns.


I can take issue with more than one aspect of a given proposal, and consider multiple aspects to have substance simultaneously too. I certainly don't have to rank said aspects to your satisfaction, or focus exclusively on the ones that I feel have the largest impact. (For one thing, not all of the potential ramifications I see to WotC's design choices or dissenting proposals can even be discussed here.)




> ProsecutorGodot at least believes that there would not be bad effects besides excess redundancy -- i.e., a formatting concern.


I'd like to hear from _him_ that he truly only meant "formatting" when he said "excess redundancy" rather than you stating that on his behalf. Because even focusing just on the redundancy aspect, I can see it having negative outcomes beyond mere wasted ink.




> I never asserted that (and have explicitly rejected it).


And yet you keep saying "mismatched expectations cause problems" as though you think preventing that should be WotC's priority. It's entirely possible, and I would argue eminently likely, that they consider some mismatches to be a worthwhile price to pay for benefits gained elsewhere in the system.

----------


## diplomancer

I took the trouble of checking other setting books to see what they say about races. Pretty much all of them say something like "These are the races, other races are unknown, unless you're a traveller from a different land". Before Dragonlance, NONE of them included the language "Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please." so there's a definite change in emphasis and this change is the cause of the mismatch of expectations and concern.

So, Psyren, would you be ok, instead of _adding_ with DM permission(which you say is superfluous), _subtracting_ this clause? Just having, as in the previous setting books that did not cause this discomfort, a statement of fact that it is possible that races from different lands appear (which leaves room for players and DMs to work _together_ to include one)?







> No it tells DMs that, as its a DM book.





> This chapter presents player-facing details of peoples and groups in Krynn


This is the second paragraph of the chapter. Did you miss it?

----------


## Psyren

> Before Dragonlance, NONE of them included the language "Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please." so there's a definite change in emphasis and this change is the cause of the mismatch of expectations and concern.


Only Dragonlance uses those _exact_ words, sure, but I disagree that it was the first setting book to imply that anything can be available. Here's several of the others:

Van Richten's: _"At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of one of the game's fantastical races. Alternatively, you can choose one of the following lineages."_ 

Wildemount: _"The nations of Wildemount are populated by people of many different races. All the races present in the Player's Handbook, as well as many of the other races of the D&D game, have a home in Wildemount."_

Wayfinders: _"Eberron can be home to any of the creatures found across the multiverse of Dungeons & Dragons."_

Even Theros and Ravnica's "unknown unless visiting from other worlds" is hardly a prohibition; both settings being cosmopolitan MTG settings, such visitation can be as routine as the DM wants it to without causing an implosion, and the odd is relatively commonplace in both.




> So, Psyren, would you be ok, instead of _adding_ with DM permission(which you say is superfluous), _subtracting_ this clause? Just having, as in the previous setting books that did not cause this discomfort, a statement of fact that it is possible that races from different lands appear (which leaves room for players and DMs to work _together_ to include one)?


I still don't understand the "discomfort" you're referring to, but are you saying you'd be fine with the People From Beyond sidebar if it simply didn't have the last sentence, but everything else about it (including its presence in the Character Creation chapter) stayed the same?

----------


## diplomancer

> Only Dragonlance uses those _exact_ words, sure, but I disagree that it was the first setting book to imply that anything can be available.


A claim I've never made, nor I think anyone else has.




> Here's several of the others:
> 
> Van Richten's: _"At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of one of the game's fantastical races. Alternatively, you can choose one of the following lineages."_


It's Ravenloft, which is a setting that, by its own nature, has a lot of outsiders, and those outsiders get there purely through the whim and malice of the Darklords, so it stands to reason that you can justify any race ending up there. Neither a surprise nor a problem.




> Wildemount: _"The nations of Wildemount are populated by people of many different races. All the races present in the Player's Handbook, as well as many of the other races of the D&D game, have a home in Wildemount."_


Yes. Many other races. The ones described in the chapter. As far as I could tell, this one is actually _more_ closed than usual, as it doesn't have the language I mentioned about other possible individuals from different races ending up there.




> Wayfinders: _"Eberron can be home to any of the creatures found across the multiverse of Dungeons & Dragons."_


The section also has: "The races described so far are those commonly found in the Five Nations. However, there are many other creatures in the world. Heres a brief overview of some of these other races and what you might do with them. *Its always up to the DM to decide if an unusual race is an option for player character*; theres a place for dragonborn in Eberron, but if a DM doesnt want to use them in a campaign, they remain hidden and unknown." and "What about kenku in Eberron? How about tritons or tabaxi? How do genasi fit into things? Theres a place for everything in Eberron, *but its always up to the DM to decide how significant that place is*. If you want to play a member of a race that hasnt been addressed here, *talk with your DM* and come up with an option. What role do you want the race to play in the world?"  See all that *bold*? Talk about superfluous!

Rising from the Last War, on the other hand, seems to be one of the more closed ones, with no language about DMs allowing other races as far as I could find.




> Even Theros and Ravnica's "unknown unless visiting from other worlds" is hardly a prohibition; both settings being cosmopolitan MTG settings, such visitation can be as routine as the DM wants it to without causing an implosion, and the odd is relatively commonplace in both.


I never said it was a prohibition; it's a reminder that the DM has a say, specially if you're going for a different race than those listed.






> I still don't understand the "discomfort" you're referring to, but are you saying you'd be fine with the People From Beyond sidebar if it simply didn't have the last sentence, but everything else about it (including its presence in the Character Creation chapter) stayed the same?


Yes, I would, it's that sentence that is really problematic. Without it, it's just a reminder that this is a fantasy world, and a fantasy world that is part of a larger multiverse to boot, so the unexpected, unusual, and exotic can very well appear.

----------


## Psyren

> A claim I've never made, nor I think anyone else has.


But the spirit of your objection is that the setting book doesn't explicitly remind the player to check with their DM when picking a race, isn't that right? None of the ones I cited do that either, even if their wording is not identical to Dragonlance.




> Yes, I would, it's that sentence that is really problematic. Without it, it's just a reminder that this is a fantasy world, and the unexpected, unusual, and exotic can very well appear.


Not merely "appear" - be usable to create player characters. Because,  again, that sidebar would still be housed within Character Creation.

In other words, if there are truly players out there who view that sidebar as a license to start arguments with their DM over expectation, I genuinely don't see how removing that final sentence would change that. It presupposes a player who was reading that whole section thinking "this all sounds cool, but I'll talk to my DM-" and then reaches that one sentence at the very end and yells "Aha! Never mind, time to argue instead!"

----------


## diplomancer

> But the spirit of your objection is that the setting book doesn't explicitly remind the player to check with their DM when picking a race, isn't that right? None of the ones I cited do that either, even if their wording is not identical to Dragonlance.


Wildemount, as far as I can tell, is closed. Eberron, Ravnica and Theros are open, but tells people to check with their DM if they want a race not listed. Ravenloft is completely open, but it would be weird if it wasn't.

Now, please refrain to trying to find out "the spirit of my objection". My objection is that the setting book explicitly _tells_ players that they can play any race they choose, when this is _simply not true_ (and I believe you agree that it is, in fact, not true, since you acknowledge that the DM is still free to say no).




> Not merely "appear" - be usable to create player characters. Because,  again, that sidebar would still be housed within Character Creation.


Sure, I don't have a problem with that at all. As long as it is clear that it is not only up to the player, or at least as long as there are no sentences that might give players that false impression.





> In other words, if there are truly players out there who view that sidebar as a license to start arguments with their DM over expectation, I genuinely don't see how removing that final sentence would change that. It presupposes a player who was reading that whole section thinking "this all sounds cool, but I'll talk to my DM-" and then reaches that one sentence at the very end and yells "Aha! Never mind, time to argue instead!"


Not "time to argue instead", but "cool, I don't even need to check it with the DM!"... and then gets disappointed when the DM tells him no (which might lead to arguing, specially if the player already went through all the trouble of creating a character, a backstory, etc.).

----------


## EggKookoo

I don't understand objections to including language that reminds players to confirm their PC choices with the DM. Who cares if it's redundant? It's a rules book, not a narrative. The goals are clarity and consistency. Some healthy redundancy is good.

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## OldTrees1

> I don't understand objections to including language that reminds players to confirm their PC choices with the DM. Who cares if it's redundant? It's a rules book, not a narrative. The goals are clarity and consistency. Some healthy redundancy is good.


Ultimately this is about how to split the work between different GMs.

Some GMs want settings to include some specifics. They know they can change those specifics if they don't fit the GM's campaign. In this case the specifics in question is specifying how species fit into the setting. This includes detailing the setting's core species, the other species that naturally exist in the setting, and an example for how a DM might choose to incorporate a character (for example a PC) of a species alien to the setting. The GM already knows they will make some specifics of their own. They would prefer having some support that they can change rather than making everything from scratch.

Other GMs don't want settings to include specifics. They know they can change those specifics if they don't fit the GM's campaign. However they would prefer WotC shut up instead so they have less specifics to change. The GM already knows they will make some specifics of their own. They would prefer making it from scratch without support rather than risk having to change any provided support.

This results in some GMs being unsatisfied with the current decreasing specificity in the products and the other GMs vehemently defending WotC's decreasing specificity. The happy side trying to out shout the unhappy side (presumably it would happen in reverse too).

There are better and worse actors in these arguments, but in the end the conclusion is deviating too far in either direction decreases the value of the product and thus decreases its sales. Tying it back to the thread's topic, the loss of sales from the GMs that find the books becoming too vague might punish WotC if they try to save R&D costs by publishing vaguer and vaguer books.

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## Dr.Samurai

> By "the book" I meant Dragonlance in this context, i.e. the sidebar you were literally just quoting. See Dr. Samurai, _This_ is what bothers _me_.


No, I know exactly what you meant. Atranen said they new plenty of players that would have different expectations if the side bar in the setting book included language about the GM. The setting book refers to, of course, the actual setting book, Dragonlance.

You responded by saying to refer them to the PHB, the book that players are _supposed_ to read (emphasis mine). This is suggesting that players aren't supposed to read the Dragonlance book and the sidebar is meant for the DM.

When I push back on this, you then respond to me that there are player-facing sections in the Dragonlance book, indicating that your original response to Atranen was pointless misleading rhetoric, and you knew that. (Even here, mind you, you are careful only to make a general point, and not actually admit that the specific section we're talking about is one of these player-facing sections.)



> I never said I _knew_, I'm reasoning it. Hence "reasonable."


Psyren, I know how to read. "Reasonable" in your comment is qualifying the assumption that you're asserting WotC is operating under. You are not saying "I'm making a reasonable assumption that WotC..."

You're saying "WotC is making the reasonable assumption".

And as much as you like to think that you exist in a hivemind with WotC development, you don't actually know that 1. their main consideration in the language is "will tables be at each other's throats" as you suggest is the reason for keeping it as is, and 2. they don't think tables will be at each other's throats.



> I'm not telling you or anyone to "sod off", I'm genuinely suggesting a course of action that might actually yield the change you want. Nothing you post here is likely to even be seen by WotC, let alone result in a change to the books.


I'm terribly sorry for giving you the impression that I am posting here under some delusion that it will be seen by WotC and change things.

I am only posting here to curb this noxious online attitude that "everything is fine, WotC can do no wrong, and your game has always been a game that you don't like, not sure what's taken you so long to see it".

You can keep ending your posts with statements that start with "If you don't understand that... If you can't handle that... If that's too much for you..." etc and/or end with "go create your own game... go create a poll... go make homebrew..." etc. but you'll always just be reframing the people you're arguing with in an unkind and unfair light, not supported by the comments they are making.



> I'm looking through the entirety of Chapter 2: Races and the *only* mention of a DM or Dungeon Master is under Variant Human.
> 
> My point, if you'll go back to it, is that we're being choosy here. If you're ignoring the introduction of the PHB for character creation in the Dragonlance book, that same logic should be fair to apply to ignoring it for the character creation section of the PHB as well. You kind of need the intro to the PHB to understand "how to play" as it literally hold the rules for "how to play". If a newer book says "any race _can_ end up here" that doesn't mean "I can ignore the DM if he says otherwise".
> 
> It's not at all contrary because *all*, and I want to stress this explicitly, with vehemence and with the most emphasis I can possibly muster through text communication, *all* features of the game require the DM's buy in because at the end of the day you _simply can't play_ if they aren't on board with your choices.
> 
> The mismatch of expectations under discussion here should be non-existent. There shouldn't have to be a continuous and repeated mention that your choices need to go through the DM because it's one of the core default expectations of the game. It's not about being hostile, restrictive or holding animosity towards anyone or anything, it's about communicating to play the game.


No one is arguing that DMs aren't always in charge about everything.

And your conclusion in NO WAY follows what you said. That the PHB calls this out does not, IN ANY WAY, suggest that there can never be a misunderstanding of roles and expectations, or that future books don't have a responsibility to cohesion with this sentiment.



> I don't understand objections to including language that reminds players to confirm their PC choices with the DM.


That's because no clear or sound argument has been put forth to explain those objections.



> Who cares if it's redundant? It's a rules book, not a narrative. The goals are clarity and consistency. Some healthy redundancy is good.


Agreed.

@Diplomancer: Well done explaining the other setting books. But it's also interesting that in defense of this sidebar people are scouring books and reading sections they haven't read in years as some sort of proof that there is no problem.

@OldTrees1: Nice post.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> That's because no clear or sound argument has been put forth to explain those objections.


That's a pretty underhanded way to say "because I disagree with their arguments they are both unclear and unsound."

You're welcome to disagree but I feel I've been pretty clear on why I believe the redundancy (which we've found is actually included) is ultimately unnecessary.

----------


## Atranen

> I can take issue with more than one aspect of a given proposal, and consider multiple aspects to have substance simultaneously too. I certainly don't have to rank said aspects to your satisfaction, or focus exclusively on the ones that I feel have the largest impact. (For one thing, not all of the potential ramifications I see to WotC's design choices or dissenting proposals can even be discussed here.)


Of course. No one is making you explain yourself at all. But I find this statement clarifying. The reason why you're hitting the (relatively mild) formatting issue so hard is because it is a proxy for other issues which you can't discuss here. 

Ok, fine. You're welcome to that opinion. I wish you would feature it front and center so we would know that any discussion on this board will never drill down to the issues we have, and we don't go on this tangent about formatting. 

Are there any issues you have besides formatting that you _can_ discuss here? For example, do you think the 'ask your GM' line discourages player choice?




> I'd like to hear from _him_ that he truly only meant "formatting" when he said "excess redundancy" rather than you stating that on his behalf. Because even focusing just on the redundancy aspect, I can see it having negative outcomes beyond mere wasted ink.





> No, there wouldn't be any bad effects but there is such a thing as excess redundancy.


What specific negative outcomes beyond wasted ink do you see from excess redundancy? Will any players be confused or discouraged from playing the characters they want due to excess redundancy? 




> And yet you keep saying "mismatched expectations cause problems" as though you think preventing that should be WotC's priority. It's entirely possible, and I would argue eminently likely, that they consider some mismatches to be a worthwhile price to pay for benefits gained elsewhere in the system.


Sure. I think clarity is one of several goals WOTC should try to satisfy simultaneously. 

What benefits are they gaining elsewhere in the system (beyond formatting and which you are able to talk about here)? Is it going to help players realize their character concepts? Is it going to enable more creativity? Is it going to make people more familiar with the books as they flip between several to figure out what's going on? 




> I still don't understand the "discomfort" you're referring to, but are you saying you'd be fine with the People From Beyond sidebar if it simply didn't have the last sentence, but everything else about it (including its presence in the Character Creation chapter) stayed the same?


This would go a long way towards addressing my concerns. 




> Not "time to argue instead", but "cool, I don't even need to check it with the DM!"... and then gets disappointed when the DM tells him no (which might lead to arguing, specially if the player already went through all the trouble of creating a character, a backstory, etc.).


Yep, this is the scenario I'm worried about. 




> I don't understand objections to including language that reminds players to confirm their PC choices with the DM. Who cares if it's redundant? It's a rules book, not a narrative. The goals are clarity and consistency. Some healthy redundancy is good.


Yes. I can see one version. It goes "including this language again will discourage players from playing the characters they want, because if they think they have to ask their GM they'll say 'oh, too bad' and pick something else. It will also make GMs feel like they ought to shoot down unusual character concepts. For both reasons, it restricts player choice, which is bad. At the same time, concerns that the language restricts GM choice are overblown, because the GM has final say, and this is clearly expressed in the PHB and elsewhere. Therefore, the best option is to not include it."

I don't agree with the specifics of that argument, but I could at least see someone supporting it. 

Unfortunately, this seems not to be the argument anyone is making to include the language. I confess I don't understand the argument being made at all, perhaps because it can't be made clearly due to forum rules. 

I like OldTrees1's summary. I am less likely to buy overly vague setting books.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> That's a pretty underhanded way to say "because I disagree with their arguments they are both unclear and unsound."
> 
> You're welcome to disagree but I feel I've been pretty clear on why I believe the redundancy (which we've found is actually included) is ultimately unnecessary.


Which ultimately fails to explain the strenuous disagreement to include language in line with the PHB or Eberron, as examples.

Yes, you've said you believe it's unnecessary. That's not sufficient enough reason to avoid clarifying the language. Bear in mind that the same section of the PHB mentions that all D&D worlds are joined together by a Multiverse. One could argue that the ENTIRE sidebar in Dragonlance is unnecessary, because we already know from the PHB section that available races might differ between settings, it's up to the DM, and that each world is linked to the other through the multiverse.

If "redundancy" is truly our metric here, it begs the question why include this section at all, to reiterate the differences in races, connection to the multiverse, BUT NOT authority of the DM?

In arguing the point the point is proven; the section IS redundant already, but mysteriously leaves out DM authority. That's the point.

----------


## JNAProductions

Has anyone here actually encountered a player that points to the book to overrule the DM on something like this?
And, corollary to that, if yes, was that player worth keeping at the table?

Or is this an issue that's hypothetical?

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## ProsecutorGodot

> In arguing the point the point is proven; the section IS redundant already, but mysteriously leaves out DM authority. That's the point.


I'd argue they proves my reasoning just as well, there is redundancy to steer you back to the phb rules and people still close to ignore them, so at the end of the day it's wasted effort because those who need the benefit of the redundancy ignore it already.




> Has anyone here actually encountered a player that points to the book to overrule the DM on something like this?
> And, corollary to that, if yes, was that player worth keeping at the table?
> 
> Or is this an issue that's hypothetical?


I can't imagine it's more than a hypothetical, in the one time I've had it happen the player was asked to adjust and they did. There was no argument involved.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Has anyone here actually encountered a player that points to the book to overrule the DM on something like this?
> And, corollary to that, if yes, was that player worth keeping at the table?
> 
> Or is this an issue that's hypothetical?


I've had issues where players' expectations around character creation were very different from (clearly stated at session 0) table ones and caused unnecessary friction even though they were fine players in other matters. Not every issue is either terminal or nothing. There are grades between the two.

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## JNAProductions

> I've had issues where players' expectations around character creation were very different from (clearly stated at session 0) table ones and caused unnecessary friction even though they were fine players in other matters. Not every issue is either terminal or nothing. There are grades between the two.


Thats fair, but would changing the text in the book actually help?

If they didnt listen to theme and such at session zero, what makes you think that a few changes words in the books would help?

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Thats fair, but would changing the text in the book actually help?
> 
> If they didnt listen to theme and such at session zero, what makes you think that a few changes words in the books would help?


It would help _non-trivially_. Because it took the form of "but the books say...".

And furthermore--there's a _huge_ difference between

A) books are restrictive, but DMs are authorized to be the good guys and expand the palette as appropriate. Then the "bad guy" is the books...who don't care, not the DM you're playing with.
B) books are expansive, but DMs are authorized to be the bad guys and restrict the palette as appropriate. Then the bad guys are the ones playing with you every session.

Restrictive books and expansive DMs work a _whole lot better_ than vice versa even if the net effect on what can be played is identical. Just for purely psychological reasons.

----------


## Atranen

PhoenixPhyre's experience regarding this happening at the table is similar to mine.

----------


## EggKookoo

> Has anyone here actually encountered a player that points to the book to overrule the DM on something like this?
> And, corollary to that, if yes, was that player worth keeping at the table?
> 
> Or is this an issue that's hypothetical?


A lot of times it's not as obvious as an open argument or fight. Quiet disappointment can be as or more damaging to a table or ongoing game. People find reasons to stop attending. In that context, yes, I've seen quite a bit of situations where conflicts over expectations have ruined games, but it's often not obvious that it's happening until later reflection (or catch up conversations, in the form of "Whatever happened to so-and-so's campaign? It just fizzled out...").

As a DM, it helps me immeasurably when the rules are consistent and explain their reasoning. If the game says X, and I intuitively agree with X (even if just because it fits with my personal tradition of the game), I can communicate that reasoning to a player who wants not-X more effectively if the game provides justification. If the game assumes X without really locking it down or being consistent with it, the tone of the conversation between me and the not-X player becomes more adversarial. Now _I_ have to have a logical reason for X, and one that doesn't just feel like it's my subjective preference and I'm not motivated to try something different.

Basically I want the game to know what it's about and be consistent with it. I absolutely think whenever the rules present a player with options (in the PHB, etc.), it should say, in some way, "Remember, your DM may have a reason for not allowing this." So that the player doesn't get invested in an idea that might not be acceptable. Yes, I think it should say this even for "obvious" things like classes and spell choices. For the DM-facing rules (DMG, etc.) it should say something like "You can omit or restrict any element of the game, but be prepared to explain your reasoning to a player that wishes to use one of those elements. Have a logical reason. Even if the reason is something secret within your table's setting lore, make sure the player knows you're not playing favorites or singling anyone out. Ideally, explain these restrictions during session zero."

I don't think I understand how anyone could argue with this. It provides the most clarity and and encourages the most options for everyone's tastes. Yes, there will be times when you feel like you absolutely positively must play a race that your DM has unequivocally said cannot exist in the current setting, but best to know that as early as possible, right? And best to have an approach to working that out that doesn't rely on the equivalent of "What have I got in my pockets?"

----------


## Psyren

> My objection is that the setting book explicitly _tells_ players that they can play any race they choose, when this is _simply not true_ (and I believe you agree that it is, in fact, not true, since you acknowledge that the DM is still free to say no).


So they can't use language that is in any way encouraging, welcoming, imagination-sparking for players, for fear of the bad apples who either didn't read the PHB, don't care what it says, or don't understand how D&D is supposed to work at its most basic level? That the DM has final say over everything?




> Not "time to argue instead", but "cool, I don't even need to check it with the DM!"... and then gets disappointed when the DM tells him no (which might lead to arguing, specially if the player already went through all the trouble of creating a character, a backstory, etc.).


Then let them be disappointed for the two seconds it takes to learn how D&D works. Or better yet, have a healthy discussion where even the DM's mind might be changed on this issue. Those can happen too.

----------


## EggKookoo

> Then let them be disappointed for the two seconds it takes to learn how D&D works.


Humans, by and large, learn by repetition.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

All we can do at this point is hope that WotC development won't be nearly as tone deaf and dismissive of some player concerns as some of the posters in this thread have been.

Truly a bizarre thing to behold.

----------


## diplomancer

> So they can't use language that is in any way encouraging, welcoming, imagination-sparking for players, for fear of the bad apples who either didn't read the PHB, don't care what it says, or don't understand how D&D is supposed to work at its most basic level? That the DM has final say over everything?


Are you saying that, without that final false sentence*, the sidebar becomes discouraging, unwelcoming and imagination-throttling? And that, as a matter of fact, all the other previous books, which did not include such a false sentence, suffered from these defects?

* The sentence is false because, as you yourself admit, it does not describe how D&D actually works, at least in 5e (who knows how that's going to be handled in One D&D? It's quite possible that, like many other changes, such as adding Feats to Backgrounds and removing Roleplaying cues from backgrounds- just to mention one change I heartily approve and another I heartily disapprove-, the Dragonlance sidebar and its controversial sentence is actually anticipating changes to come in D&D One).

----------


## Psyren

> Are you saying that, without that final false sentence*, the sidebar becomes discouraging, unwelcoming and imagination-throttling? And that, as a matter of fact, all the other previous books, which did not include such a false sentence, suffered from these defects?


To be clear, I'm fine with the language in the three books I cited too. But I think being so trepidatious and fearful around empowering language is contrary to WotC's interests.

I view this like saying _"You can't just go around telling children they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up! Some of them might see that as express permission to become criminals, con artists, addicts, and slackers!"_




> * The sentence is false because, as you yourself admit, it does not describe how D&D actually works, at least in 5e (who knows how that's going to be handled in One D&D? It's quite possible that, like many other changes, such as adding Feats to Backgrounds and removing Roleplaying cues from backgrounds- just to mention one change I heartily approve and another I heartily disapprove-, the Dragonlance sidebar and its controversial sentence is actually anticipating changes to come in D&D One).


So you honestly think there's a chance OneD&D might say "your players can use whatever options we print in one product in any other product, regardless of your own wishes or ability to run an immersive game using those options, and we will chain you to the DM screen to enforce it?"

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> All we can do at this point is hope that WotC development won't be nearly as tone deaf and dismissive of some player concerns as some of the posters in this thread have been.
> 
> Truly a bizarre thing to behold.


That's definitely not a fair interpretation of things, though the irony here is certainly noteworthy.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> That's definitely not a fair interpretation of things, though the irony here is certainly noteworthy.


Given that you seem only capable of spotting "unfairness" in this thread if I post it, I'll take your comments with a giant grain of salt.

Note, that just because you find changing the language "unnecessary", it doesn't mean it shouldn't be changed. You can see most of the people here are trying to understand why you and Psyren and Envyus are so opposed to making a very simple and harmless change to the sidebar. The same cannot be said for the three of you. All we get is stubborn opposition and a misrepresenting of what we are asking for. "I don't agree" is not the same as "it shouldn't be done", hence my characterization of one side being tone deaf and dismissive.

I think we all understand that you disagree. What we don't understand is what is so offensive or harmful about bringing the language inline with the PHB. You have all failed to demonstrate that, though Psyren has just been spoonfed a "it stifles players" argument, so I'm sure he'll champion that going forward. Straws are straws, but if they're the only thing you can grasp at...

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> Given that you seem only capable of spotting "unfairness" in this thread if I post it, I'll take your comments with a giant grain of salt.
> 
> Note, that just because you find changing the language "unnecessary", it doesn't mean it shouldn't be changed. You can see most of the people here are trying to understand why you and Psyren and Envyus are so opposed to making a very simple and harmless change to the sidebar. The same cannot be said for the three of you. All we get is stubborn opposition and a misrepresenting of what we are asking for. "I don't agree" is not the same as "it shouldn't be done", hence my characterization of one side being tone deaf and dismissive.
> 
> I think we all understand that you disagree. What we don't understand is what is so offensive or harmful about bringing the language inline with the PHB. You have all failed to demonstrate that, though Psyren has just been spoonfed a "it stifles players" argument, so I'm sure he'll champion that going forward. Straws are straws, but if they're the only thing you can grasp at...


Alright, since you've gone and stuck to your guns fully, let me remind you of the stance you took with regards to a definitively non-hypothetical complaint.



> Ah, another post calling people names and accusing them of causing great harm with absolutely ZERO evidence to support it. Nice.
> 
> Frankly, there just simply isn't enough provided to justify these changes. That SOME people have complained online, because they are interpreting lore in a certain way, claiming damages on behalf of other people and SOME anecdotal evidence... it's like... okay, noted. It's certainly not a reason to redefine D&D lore, or attack the fans of the game as "thoughtless" and accuse them of perpetuating harm that no one can ever clearly point to or define.


These are your words. 

But it's okay if you do it, it's different.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Noted that you did not take the opportunity to strengthen your position. Because there is nothing there, as we've been saying.

And it's not clear to me what sort of "gotcha" you think you've achieved here.

The sentiments are different between two books. That's a problem. Even if we go with your redundancy angle, they have gone out of their way to be redundant on two our of three issues, and that missing third one is a problem.

This isn't similar, to me, to people complaining that something offends them and therefore the game needs to change. I honestly don't know how you arrived at this conclusion.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> Noted that you did not take the opportunity to strengthen your position. Because there is nothing there, as we've been saying.
> 
> And it's not clear to me what sort of "gotcha" you think you've achieved here.
> 
> The sentiments are different between two books. That's a problem. Even if we go with your redundancy angle, they have gone out of their way to be redundant on two our of three issues, and that missing third one is a problem.
> 
> This isn't similar, to me, to people complaining that something offends them and therefore the game needs to change. I honestly don't know how you arrived at this conclusion.


I feel like I've demonstrated they're not different because it points you directly to the phb rules but you won't accept that answer.

You're the one who said that I was being offensive (that's how I interpret your accusations of being tone deaf and dismissive)* to those who believed this redundancy is necessary*, I never said anyone was being offensive with regards to this issue, you did.

You're accusing me of those things, unsubstantiated. All I've argued is that I believe the redundancy is unnecessary because I expect people to understand the concept of playing a game together.

Edit: I actually want to clarify my own bolded statement. I don't have a problem with redundancy, there are aspects of the rules which I feel are not clarified often enough even, I just feel that in this aspect what *has been* done is adequate. What I believe is being argued for, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is for the permissive language used in that specific section of the dragonlance book to be changed/removed/adjusted in some way on the basis that it could cause someone to believe they have some sort of permission to override their DM's authority in running a campaign world. I disagree with _that_ because I don't believe that's a problem that needs to be solved with text adjustments, it's much more reasonable for all of the players involved (never forget, the DM is also a player) to be up front and communicate their expectations. There shouldn't need to be constant reminders on how to be sociable with people because I don't view this as a simple "rules" issue.

----------


## Atranen

> A lot of times it's not as obvious as an open argument or fight. Quiet disappointment can be as or more damaging to a table or ongoing game. People find reasons to stop attending. In that context, yes, I've seen quite a bit of situations where conflicts over expectations have ruined games, but it's often not obvious that it's happening until later reflection (or catch up conversations, in the form of "Whatever happened to so-and-so's campaign? It just fizzled out...").


Yes, this is the scenario I'm imagining, not open, loud, hostile conflict. 




> So they can't use language that is in any way encouraging, welcoming, imagination-sparking for players, for fear of the bad apples who either didn't read the PHB, don't care what it says, or don't understand how D&D is supposed to work at its most basic level? That the DM has final say over everything?


Saying "ask your GM" prevents the language from being in any way encouraging, welcoming, or imagination sparking? 




> To be clear, I'm fine with the language in the three books I cited too. But I think being so trepidatious and fearful around empowering language is contrary to WotC's interests.


There's a hint of a developed argument here, but just a hint. 




> I view this like saying _"You can't just go around telling children they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up! Some of them might see that as express permission to become criminals, con artists, addicts, and slackers!"_


Saying "ask your GM" is equivalent to saying "you can't play the things you want"?




> So you honestly think there's a chance OneD&D might say "your players can use whatever options we print in one product in any other product, regardless of your own wishes or ability to run an immersive game using those options, and we will chain you to the DM screen to enforce it?"


People on my side of the debate have rejected this strenuously and explicitly time and time again, and it's disappointing to see it still brought up to characterize our view.




> l think we all understand that you disagree. What we don't understand is what is so offensive or harmful about bringing the language inline with the PHB.


Agreed.




> Noted that you did not take the opportunity to strengthen your position. Because there is nothing there, as we've been saying.


I'd love to see someone bite the bullet and explain in detail a complaint beyond "bad formatting". There are some noises about discouraging players; flesh those out and let's see what specifically you see as an issue.




> You're accusing me of those things, unsubstantiated. All I've argued is that I believe the redundancy is unnecessary because I expect people to understand the concept of playing a game together.


Thanks for your measured and reasonable replies thus far. I think it's fine to say the redundancy is unnecessary; I just don't get why it's a big deal to include it. Many things in the books are extraneous or unnecessary, without fanfare. 




> What I believe is being argued for, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is for the permissive language used in that specific section of the dragonlance book to be changed/removed/adjusted in some way on the basis that it could cause someone to believe they have some sort of permission to override their DM's authority in running a campaign world. I disagree with _that_ because I don't believe that's a problem that needs to be solved with text adjustments, it's much more reasonable for all of the players involved (never forget, the DM is also a player) to be up front and communicate their expectations. There shouldn't need to be constant reminders on how to be sociable with people because I don't view this as a simple "rules" issue.


I don't agree that this is what I (at least) am arguing for. I don't expect a player to show up and say to the GM "tough luck, I'm playing XYZ". 

I do expect a player to show up and say "hey, I hear we are playing in Dragonlance, great, I rolled up a character of an exotic species who lives in a small enclave with like individuals", a GM to say "Oh, that's not really what I had in mind", the player to say "oh, but the book says it's ok", the GM to say "well it's not how I envision the world", and the player to say "ok I'll make a new character". 

No big deal; conflict can be headed off at any stage of that with good communication, and either the GM or the player will cave. 

But if communication is a little less good, or either party feels pretty strongly, or if the player or GM has to change an aspect and spend some time on it, it might go less well. And this could be true even without overt conflict or an awful group. 

Maybe you think this is all overblown. But at least PhoenixPhyre and I have experienced something like this, and I think it's reasonable to ask: why *not* include the "ask your GM" line?

----------


## diplomancer

> So you honestly think there's a chance OneD&D might say "your players can use whatever options we print in one product in any other product, regardless of your own wishes or ability to run an immersive game using those options, and we will chain you to the DM screen to enforce it?"


That's a strawman of what I've said.

DM empowerment and Player empowerment exist on a spectrum. From what I understand, 3rd edition, for instance, was more heavily on the Player empowerment side of the spectrum, while 5e is more on the DM side of the spectrum. 

So, no, I don't expect the language you cited appearing in One D&D. But, ever since Tasha, it's clear that the game is going more to the player side of the spectrum than previously, and the controversial sentence is more evidence of that. It could be as simple as telling DMs to work with their players instead of telling players to work with their DMs. It then becomes the expectation that the player can play whatever he wants, and it's the DM who should try to accommodate him. Even if it still says that the final decision lies with the DM (I don't expect that to change), the expectation would have changed.

The "sweet spot" of the spectrum, obviously, varies from person to person (and can even change in the same person in different times).

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> I don't agree that this is what I (at least) am arguing for. I don't expect a player to show up and say to the GM "tough luck, I'm playing XYZ". 
> 
> I do expect a player to show up and say "hey, I hear we are playing in Dragonlance, great, I rolled up a character of an exotic species who lives in a small enclave with like individuals", a GM to say "Oh, that's not really what I had in mind", the player to say "oh, but the book says it's ok", the GM to say "well it's not how I envision the world", and the player to say "ok I'll make a new character". 
> 
> No big deal; conflict can be headed off at any stage of that with good communication, and either the GM or the player will cave. 
> 
> But if communication is a little less good, or either party feels pretty strongly, or if the player or GM has to change an aspect and spend some time on it, it might go less well. And this could be true even without overt conflict or an awful group. 
> 
> Maybe you think this is all overblown. But at least PhoenixPhyre and I have experienced something like this, and I think it's reasonable to ask: why *not* include the "ask your GM" line?


My belief is that if you encounter an issue that can't be resolved with communication then no amount of rules text will help you resolve it. As I've said, my problem isn't with the concept of adding redundancy but in this instance I believe it would be excessive, for two reasons:
-It already tells you from the introduction of this chapter that the rules are supplementary to the PHB rules
-If there's a conflict at that point and simply talking it out doesn't resolve it then we've _already_ reached the point that rules text is being ignored and no amount of specificity or additional text would fix what I consider to be "unreasonable" behavior. "The book said I could and I don't like that you're telling me no" just changes to "The book told me to ask you and I don't like that you're telling me no" which aren't very different problems at the end of the day.

Why I say its "unreasonable" is because if we can't even get past the session 0 aspects of play by simply communicating expectations with each other then I would consider that a time to pull out the popular philosophy of "no D&D is better than bad D&D"

To be clear, I don't see much harm in including an "ask your DM" line, but again, I just don't think it's necessary. 

I also want to touch on this final part seperately:



> Thanks for your measured and reasonable replies thus far. I think it's fine to say the redundancy is unnecessary; *I just don't get why it's a big deal to include it.* Many things in the books are extraneous or unnecessary, without fanfare.


Here's the big secret - *it's not*. I shared my opinion and though I may have been heavy handed in sharing it that doesn't mean I'm suggesting my opinion is superior or correct. I characterized what I _thought_ was a hypothetical situation of an obtuse player using what is only slightly more permissive language than is present in other books as permission to rebel against their DM and make claims of validity to doing whatever they wanted. 

PhoenixPhyre's example was a non-hypothetical (and it appears you've had a similar experience) and it looks like it worked out exactly as I'd expected. They claim the issue was resolved through communication and that the issue was supposedly caused by "but the book said this" and we can only _assume_ that any extra text would have made things meaningfully different. With regards to that example, I don't really see how though, a Session 0 layout is already outside the text and that seems to be what was the cause of the minor "conflict" that was resolved. Whether or not the books are permissive or restrictive shouldn't have mattered because the Session 0 that PP lays out overrides anything it conflicts with.

Or to be even more clear on my point of view, I have faith in three things about D&D:
1) Reasonable people can solve any table conflict with simple communication and outlining expectations ahead of time.
2) Everybody (even reasonable people) will cling to things that validate their wants or expectations and disregard things that don't, even if that has the potential to cause conflict. This shouldn't be a problem, but if it is, observe point 1.
3) Don't play with unreasonable people. Bad D&D is worse than no D&D.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

ProsecutorGodot, I understand that you don't think it's necessary.

That's not my issue, nor why I (might) think you're being unreasonable. I'm not even sure you were lumped in (to my mind) when I even typed that, as I've been engaging with other people far more often than I have engaged with you.

My issue is that your suggestion, and now your other suggestion about "don't play with reasonable people", is not helpful. It goes without saying, and it can be said about anything. You and Psyren, and others, appear to be reducing this concern/issue/potentiality to nothing, and shrugging your shoulders and saying "this problem should resolve itself or you're doing it wrong" or "this doesn't need to be repeated or you're doing it wrong".

As I've said, this can be said about a great many number of things that people discuss about the hobby. You're taking a sort of utopian view of the game and saying "well if it isn't running in an ideal and perfect fashion, you are doing it wrong, there is nothing WotC can do about it, nor should they".

Yes, we shouldn't play with unreasonable people. I don't think anyone is suggesting that a line of text is going to cure bad actors or unfit players at your table. It's a point of clarification. What we have now is a mixed message. If you remove the last line that says "play whatever race you please", the sidebar is still encouraging to players that want to play something not native to the setting. But it doesn't provide a seemingly blanket permission that is at odds with a DM's normal authority. So it would prevent any confusion in the first place.

----------


## Psyren

> A lot of times it's not as obvious as an open argument or fight. Quiet disappointment can be as or more damaging to a table or ongoing game. People find reasons to stop attending. In that context, yes, I've seen quite a bit of situations where conflicts over expectations have ruined games, but it's often not obvious that it's happening until later reflection (or catch up conversations, in the form of "Whatever happened to so-and-so's campaign? It just fizzled out...").


If someone wants to play a Tiefling in your Krynn campaign, and their DM doesn't want them to, they are going to be disappointed whether every book outside core reminds players they need to run their characters by their DM before playing them or not. The real solution is to _talk with them_ - either explaining why you don't want them to play that character, or letting them convince you that it's not a big deal and allowing it. Expecting the book to pre-empt such wants is beyond unrealistic.




> Saying "ask your GM" prevents the language from being in any way encouraging, welcoming, or imagination sparking? 
> 
> 
> Saying "ask your GM" is equivalent to saying "you can't play the things you want"?


They did say it. In the PHB. Repeating it over and over in every splatbook they ever print, beyond the "formatting" issue as you've termed it, I don't see as having a positive effect on the edition as a whole.




> People on my side of the debate have rejected this strenuously and explicitly time and time again, and it's disappointing to see it still brought up to characterize our view.


I was responding to _"It's quite possible that...the Dragonlance sidebar and its controversial sentence is actually anticipating changes to come in D&D One."_ Since you're claiming to share that view and I'm "mischaracterizing" it, what changes would those be then?

----------


## MoiMagnus

> Or to be even more clear on my point of view, I have faith in three things about D&D:
> 1) Reasonable people can solve any table conflict with simple communication and outlining expectations ahead of time.
> 2) Everybody (even reasonable people) will cling to things that validate their wants or expectations and disregard things that don't, even if that has the potential to cause conflict. This shouldn't be a problem, but if it is, observe point 1.
> 3) Don't play with unreasonable people. Bad D&D is worse than no D&D.


Do you consider "somewhat incompetent peoples, filled with insecurities or overconfidence depending on the situation, but that could be reasoned with if you put enough effort into it" to be "reasonable peoples"?

My experience with those peoples is that "put the label ON the thing" is of major help. A warning text that is a few chapters before will often be forgotten, while a warning text that is given at the same time as the feature will help a lot. Especially if everyone around the table is of that kind, a well-written rulebook that repeats the major points constantly can be the difference between the players and GM succeeding or failing at reasoning each other.

(It's always easy to forget that on tables where you're not there, well... you're not there to reason peoples into agreeing with each other, and just because you can do it doesn't mean they can do it alone)

----------


## EggKookoo

> Especially if everyone around the table is of that kind, a well-written rulebook that repeats the major points constantly can be the difference between the players and GM succeeding or failing at reasoning each other.


It's amusing (perhaps sadly) that one of the things that still dogs D&D is its rules presentation. I remember as a kid I struggled mightily to understand the 1e rules. Granted, I was trying to decipher them when I was 8 or so, but even looking back now I can see how much of a mess they were. D&D has come a long way to be sure, but there's this heritage of ambiguity that hasn't been purged completely. Did 4e fix that? I never played it or read the rules.

I compare it to how Mayfair Games wrote the rulebooks for DC Heroes. While I was a teenager when that came out, I was still blown away by how clear and straightforward the text was. It was obvious how the developers of that game viewed their own product and how they expected or at least hoped we'd play it. Sure, we still deviated, but having that strong, consistent core of understanding was incredibly valuable.

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## Atranen

> Here's the big secret - *it's not*. I shared my opinion and though I may have been heavy handed in sharing it that doesn't mean I'm suggesting my opinion is superior or correct. I characterized what I _thought_ was a hypothetical situation of an obtuse player using what is only slightly more permissive language than is present in other books as permission to rebel against their DM and make claims of validity to doing whatever they wanted.


Great, I think we're 85% on the same page then.




> My belief is that if you encounter an issue that can't be resolved with communication then no amount of rules text will help you resolve it. As I've said, my problem isn't with the concept of adding redundancy but in this instance I believe it would be excessive, for two reasons:
> -It already tells you from the introduction of this chapter that the rules are supplementary to the PHB rules
> -If there's a conflict at that point and simply talking it out doesn't resolve it then we've _already_ reached the point that rules text is being ignored and no amount of specificity or additional text would fix what I consider to be "unreasonable" behavior. "The book said I could and I don't like that you're telling me no" just changes to "The book told me to ask you and I don't like that you're telling me no" which aren't very different problems at the end of the day.


I think that in many situations this is true, and I agree that any problems created will be solved without issue by an ideal group. 

But I also think not every group is ideal, and it's better for rules to be clear.




> Or to be even more clear on my point of view, I have faith in three things about D&D:
> 1) Reasonable people can solve any table conflict with simple communication and outlining expectations ahead of time.
> 2) Everybody (even reasonable people) will cling to things that validate their wants or expectations and disregard things that don't, even if that has the potential to cause conflict. This shouldn't be a problem, but if it is, observe point 1.
> 3) Don't play with unreasonable people. Bad D&D is worse than no D&D.


I agree with all of this. Although I'll note it may be more challenging than one would hope when playing in AL or with people who are friends beyond D&D, where leaving over creative differences may not be so simple. (I sure hope no one reads this as I hate my friends or they're all unreasonable...)  




> As I've said, this can be said about a great many number of things that people discuss about the hobby. You're taking a sort of utopian view of the game and saying "well if it isn't running in an ideal and perfect fashion, you are doing it wrong, there is nothing WotC can do about it, nor should they".


Agreed. I'm worried about scenarios that are mostly good but not perfect, which characterizes most of the games I've played in.




> They did say it. In the PHB. Repeating it over and over in every splatbook they ever print, beyond the "formatting" issue as you've termed it, I don't see as having a positive effect on the edition as a whole.


You keep gesturing vaguely towards perceived problems -- "I don't see it having a positive effect on the edition as a whole". But why, specifically, do you see that? What specific negative effects will it have? What issues is it going to cause? Take us through a scenario where you think it will cause problems, like several people have done for not including "ask the GM". 

I won't be upset if you say "the only reasons I can think of I can't discuss due to forum rules". That's a fine place to leave the argument. 

But at the moment I have no idea what you're referring to. 




> I was responding to _"It's quite possible that...the Dragonlance sidebar and its controversial sentence is actually anticipating changes to come in D&D One."_ Since you're claiming to share that view and I'm "mischaracterizing" it, what changes would those be then?


A shift in language to telling DMs to work with their players instead of telling players to work with their DMs (as diplomancer puts it) which does not go so far as to say they will "chain DMs to the table" or "bust down your door if you change anything".




> My experience with those peoples is that "put the label ON the thing" is of major help. A warning text that this a few chapters before will be often forgotten while a warning text that is given at the same time as the feature will helps a lot. Especially if everyone around the table is of that kind, a well-written rulebook that repeats the major points constantly can be the difference between the players and GM succeeding or failing at reasoning each other.


Agreed.

----------


## Gignere

> Has anyone here actually encountered a player that points to the book to overrule the DM on something like this?
> And, corollary to that, if yes, was that player worth keeping at the table?
> 
> Or is this an issue that's hypothetical?


No across D&D editions and probably 30+ different tables across all my years of gaming I have never encountered a player demanding to play a race/class combo the DM isnt comfortable with including. Even spells if a DM bans it even post play after several sessions, no one has thrown a tantrum before. No one has said this is published so it is fair game or I quit but I dont play AL so I dont know if AL experience is different.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

Similarly, in 20+ years of playing D&D, I've never had a player quit the game because the book mentioned that something was up to the DM.

I think this is mostly a failure of imagination. That the book, with this new language, might give a player the wrong impression, so when the DM makes the ruling, the player feels cheated. For some reason, trying to avoid this is seen as folly because it doesn't appear to be a problem unless the player physically throws a tantrum and turns into the most exaggerated example of a "bad player" that of course you'd have to kick them out of your table so problem solved anyways.

No no, I'm being unfair. They're saying "have a conversation with your player". Ah yes, because conversations solve all things. Because saying "no, look at the PHB, I get to choose" is going to fix all miscommunications. And if it doesn't, it's because those involved are immature. Because the player won't think "yeah, I know, but this book says that these races ARE in this world, and I can play them, so why are you saying no?". I'm sure when the DM says "Because the PHB says I can" everything will be resolved smoothly. And if it doesn't, it's not WotC's problem! WotC has no obligation to consider how their products might be read and how it will impact table interactions. Some guys on the internet said so, so it must be true. If someone reads the sidebar as it is meant to be read, and comes into any conflict with the DM, destroy them. Remove them from the game and excise them from your lives, obviously. They are a problem, and no, clarifying a miscommunication ahead of time IN NO WAY can avoid a miscommunication.

The alternative is just too much to ask. Clarifying the sidebar would... well, it would cause the space/time continuum to unravel. Billions of parallel realities will be destroyed, taking with them countless lives. Just kidding. Literally nothing bad would happen lol.

----------


## Psyren

> You keep gesturing vaguely towards perceived problems -- "I don't see it having a positive effect on the edition as a whole". But why, specifically, do you see that? What specific negative effects will it have? What issues is it going to cause? Take us through a scenario where you think it will cause problems, like several people have done for not including "ask the GM". 
> 
> I won't be upset if you say "the only reasons I can think of I can't discuss due to forum rules". That's a fine place to leave the argument. 
> 
> But at the moment I have no idea what you're referring to.


Just as you feel repeating the language makes a difference, I feel _not_ repeating it does too.

Stating it once in core notifies the player of the baseline expectation for the edition, while erring on the side of still encouraging them to try coming to the table with character concepts, ideas and suggestions they might not have otherwise - those beyond the options laid out in the setting book. Conversely, beating them over the head with the reminder could instead naturally curtail that impulse. For me it's the difference between_ "you can propose options not stated here, they might be allowed"_ and _"you can propose options not stated here, but they'll probably be denied."_

On the DM side, I acknowledge that some DMs (particularly those on your side of the debate in this thread) may experience some awkwardness if faced with a proposal they oppose, or even outright lose a player if they remain unmoved. But I think that's a worthwhile price to pay for enabling the chance that _other_ DMs, who might be on the fence/more amenable on this issue, to look inward and examine their true reasons for denying something being their first instinct - either arriving at the conclusion that it's not that big a deal after all, or at the very least be willing to meet the player halfway in some way. I think that encouraging this kind of interaction (or at the very least, not _discouraging_ it) has more positive effects for the edition as a whole both reputationally and commercially.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> Similarly, in 20+ years of playing D&D, I've never had a player quit the game because the book mentioned that something was up to the DM.
> 
> I think this is mostly a failure of imagination. That the book, with this new language, might give a player the wrong impression, so when the DM makes the ruling, the player feels cheated. For some reason, trying to avoid this is seen as folly because it doesn't appear to be a problem unless the player physically throws a tantrum and turns into the most exaggerated example of a "bad player" that of course you'd have to kick them out of your table so problem solved anyways.
> 
> No no, I'm being unfair. They're saying "have a conversation with your player". *Ah yes, because conversations solve all things.* Because saying "no, look at the PHB, I get to choose" is going to fix all miscommunications. And if it doesn't, it's because those involved are immature. Because the player won't think "yeah, I know, but this book says that these races ARE in this world, and I can play them, so why are you saying no?". I'm sure when the DM says "Because the PHB says I can" everything will be resolved smoothly. And if it doesn't, it's not WotC's problem! WotC has no obligation to consider how their products might be read and how it will impact table interactions. Some guys on the internet said so, so it must be true. If someone reads the sidebar as it is meant to be read, and comes into any conflict with the DM, destroy them. Remove them from the game and excise them from your lives, obviously. They are a problem, and no, clarifying a miscommunication ahead of time IN NO WAY can avoid a miscommunication.
> 
> The alternative is just too much to ask. Clarifying the sidebar would... well, it would cause the space/time continuum to unravel. Billions of parallel realities will be destroyed, taking with them countless lives. Just kidding. Literally nothing bad would happen lol.


Could you at least try not to exaggerate the argument? It's a small issue, an *incredibly* minor issue, and you're treating the opinions of people who disagree with you as if they're an assault against you or your opinions.

"They should repeat that your DM is in charge more often"
"I think that's unnecessary"
"Oh, so you think the world will end if they add a few lines of text huh, what kind of tone deaf insensitive person would be so callous as to disregard those who might have struggled with an issue of a lack of communicating expectations that would be solved by this additional line of text. What's the issue with adding it, you act as if the space/time continuum will unravel"

To which my response is - huh? What? Excuse me?

Your argument here isn't even internally consistent, you're asking that the book uses more restrictive language to avoid conflict but in your arguments against "just talk it out" you cite an example of the DM citing rules that reinforce their authority as a potential cause of conflict all the same. In your own example, your proposed solution is what causes the conflict. If you accept that "because the PHB says I can" is a potential source of conflict, surely you see how "because the setting book says you can't unless I say so" isn't going to be any better? Neither is better, neither is worse, both end up requiring that you talk it out in the end if they do cause a conflict.

And as far as the bolded text - yes it should, we're talking about the social dynamics of a _tabletop roleplaying game_, it's not a world-shaking philosophical issue. Though as evidenced through _this_ conversation, sometimes it fails, sometimes people seek conflict. Sometimes people can't help but escalate things and make a mountain of a mole hill.

----------


## Atranen

> I'm sure when the DM says "Because the PHB says I can" everything will be resolved smoothly.


Honestly, by the time the DM is opening the PHB to look there, the situation is pretty far gone. Another reason to have everything in one place. 




> Just as you feel repeating the language makes a difference, I feel _not_ repeating it does too.
> 
> Stating it once in core notifies the player of the baseline expectation for the edition, while erring on the side of still encouraging them to try coming to the table with character concepts, ideas and suggestions they might not have otherwise - those beyond the options laid out in the setting book. Conversely, beating them over the head with the reminder could instead naturally curtail that impulse. For me it's the difference between_ "you can propose options not stated here, they might be allowed"_ and _"you can propose options not stated here, but they'll probably be denied."_
> 
> On the DM side, I acknowledge that some DMs (particularly those on your side of the debate in this thread) may experience some awkwardness if faced with a proposal they oppose, or even outright lose a player if they remain unmoved. But I think that's a worthwhile price to pay for enabling the chance that _other_ DMs, who might be on the fence/more amenable on this issue, to look inward and examine their true reasons for denying something being their first instinct - either arriving at the conclusion that it's not that big a deal after all, or at the very least be willing to meet the player halfway in some way. I think that encouraging this kind of interaction (or at the very least, not _discouraging_ it) has more positive effects for the edition as a whole both reputationally and commercially.


Thanks for this post; this is the kind of clarification for your position I've been looking for. I think some of your language exaggerates unnecessarily (is repeating a statement "beating them over the head with it"?) but I get the logic. 

I think, after all that, we agree that the language makes a difference and agree on the nature of that difference -- repeating "ask the GM" will make players think more carefully about whether concepts fit the traditional setting and talk to the GM about them before proceeding. 

We still differ regarding whether or not this is a good thing. I understand your concerns about constraining player creativity. However, it does not match my experience. Setting up a game for creativity involves a tradeoff between specificity and generality; too specific and players can't bring anything to the table, too general and they don't have enough to latch onto and build off of. I find the multiverse, all species allowed option too general; the parties I've seen with many unusual species feel less well defined and less connected to the world, precisely because they don't have anything firm to latch on to. So I see more restrictions as _supporting_ creativity, in practice. 

As for GMs, I think GMs are often making a bad decision by allowing more exotic species, at least with having a well thought out reason for doing so, so I think WOTC encouraging this is a bad thing. 

I don't have evidence either way for what is better reputationally and commercially. I know what I find more fun and will make me more likely to introduce others to the game, and that's stronger settings. 

I think our disagreement is more broadly about what a setting is for--inspiration for a GMs personal version of the setting, or as a firm statement of a campaign world. I favor the latter. 

Anyway, I'm glad that we could reach some sort of agreement on the contours of the problem, even if it took so long. I'm happy to expand on any of the points I bring up here, or to leave the discussion there. Thanks for sticking with it to get here. 




> In your own example, your proposed solution is what causes the conflict. If you accept that "because the PHB says I can" is a potential source of conflict, surely you see how "because the setting book says you can't unless I say so" isn't going to be any better? Neither is better, neither is worse, both end up requiring that you talk it out in the end if they do cause a conflict.


In this case, I think reiterating the PHB is less likely to cause conflict than something that appears to conflict with the PHB.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Could you at least try not to exaggerate the argument? It's a small issue, an *incredibly* minor issue, and you're treating the opinions of people who disagree with you as if they're an assault against you or your opinions.


It's hyperbole. Relax. If it doesn't apply to you, don't get bent out of shape over it.

The hyperbole is there precisely because it isn't a big issue at all, and yet several people are strenuously opposed to correcting it for vague and/or weak reasons, to the point of continually mischaracterizing the rest of us as fun-haters, tyrants, lacking people skills, unable to manage players, having unreasonable expectations of WotC, etc etc etc etc etc ad nauseum.

If you were really concerned about exaggeration, I'm surprised you've been quiet on it this far into the thread...



> Your argument here isn't even internally consistent, you're asking that the book uses more restrictive language to avoid conflict but in your arguments against "just talk it out" you cite an example of the DM citing rules that reinforce their authority as a potential cause of conflict all the same. In your own example, your proposed solution is what causes the conflict. If you accept that "because the PHB says I can" is a potential source of conflict, surely you see how "because the setting book says you can't unless I say so" isn't going to be any better?


Allow me to reiterate again, using your words. The PHB is "a potential source of conflict" BECAUSE WotC has now printed a book that tells the players any race can be found in the setting and they can go ahead and play any race they please.

I NEVER suggested the PHB on its own is a problem. I have only stated that the existence of new language that doesn't jive with the PHB is a problem. 




> Neither is better, neither is worse, both end up requiring that you talk it out in the end if they do cause a conflict.


One is clearly better because it avoids the conflict in the first place. Remember, the conflict here is specifically based on the misalignment between one book and the other.

We're not saying "people might get upset because the DM will say no". We're saying "people might get upset because the DM will say no and they think the book sides with them".

Yes, talking it out is obviously the solution to this problem _WotC is creating_. No, "talk it out" doesn't mean nothing should or could be done about it.



> And as far as the bolded text - yes it should, we're talking about the social dynamics of a _tabletop roleplaying game_, it's not a world-shaking philosophical issue. Though as evidenced through _this_ conversation, sometimes it fails, sometimes people seek conflict. Sometimes people can't help but escalate things and make a mountain of a mole hill.


Yes, and some people have reading comprehension and can follow a conversation and engage with people's points meaningfully. And others resort to strawmen, feigning disinterest as they continue to engage, red herrings, etc etc, all to... I don't know, score points? Appear intelligent? "Win" an argument?

It may not be a big deal to you but... so what? Remember that this thread is about monetization. Remember that some people like the direction things are going in, and some people don't. Remember that this discussion about races in settings appears to be relevant to the direction things are going in. And WotC's champions could barely put an argument together before having to characterize us as, well, you've read the thread. As I mentioned several pages ago, if this is a sign of things to come, yikes.

----------


## Psyren

> Thanks for this post; this is the kind of clarification for your position I've been looking for. I think some of your language exaggerates unnecessarily (is repeating a statement "beating them over the head with it"?) but I get the logic.


I'm glad we're getting somewhere. 




> I understand your concerns about constraining player creativity. However, it does not match my experience.


Well, the whole scenario of people quiet-quitting the table (or outright throwing a fit?) purely because the DM stood up for their vision of the world and the game they wanted to run doesn't match _my_ experience. Moreover, I think the chilling effect of constraining creativity is by far a more common scenario than group-damaging conflict.




> Setting up a game for creativity involves a tradeoff between specificity and generality; too specific and players can't bring anything to the table, too general and they don't have enough to latch onto and build off of. *I find the multiverse, all species allowed option too general*; the parties I've seen with many unusual species feel less well defined and less connected to the world, precisely because they don't have anything firm to latch on to. So I see more restrictions as _supporting_ creativity, in practice.


I don't think being connected to a multiverse has to mean "all species allowed." That's a false equivalency. In this very thread, I've explicitly said that I wouldn't want to run a Krynn game with Plasmoids as one example. (I could potentially see allowing Autognomes though, I could see a few of them emerging from Mt. Nevermind one day.)




> As for GMs, I think GMs are often making a bad decision by allowing more exotic species, at least with having a well thought out reason for doing so, so I think WOTC encouraging this is a bad thing.


Whereas I think DMs willing to accommodate these concepts are promoting not just creativity and accessibility, but outright skill. This is not to say that those who want more constraints aren't skilled, but I'll think much more highly of the ones willing to try than not.




> Anyway, I'm glad that we could reach some sort of agreement on the contours of the problem, even if it took so long.


I'm still to this moment not sure why but I care more about the result anyway, so I appreciate it nonetheless.




> In this case, I think reiterating the PHB is less likely to cause conflict than something that appears to conflict with the PHB.


Just because it doesn't restate what is in the PHB (over and over and over across every book with a chargen section) does not imply a conflict with the PHB though.

----------


## ProsecutorGodot

> Yes, and some people have reading comprehension and can follow a conversation and engage with people's points meaningfully. And others resort to strawmen, feigning disinterest as they continue to engage, red herrings, etc etc, all to... I don't know, score points? Appear intelligent? "Win" an argument?


You mean like suggesting someone is being tone deaf, insensitive, accusing me of only being able to engage with perceived "unfairness", saying that my arguments can be dismissed because of that and that each and every argument proposed to you can be simplified as a straw man.

I'll be blunt here - since I've entered this discussion, you're the only one here who's gone out of their way to be dismissive and refused to seek any common ground here. Even the other users I've vocalized my disagreement with have made strides to agree where they see as fair, as I have also. You haven't, you've only attacked others character and accused them of having ulterior motives, and I find that unconscionable.




> And WotC's champions could barely put an argument together before having to characterize us as, well, you've read the thread. As I mentioned several pages ago, if this is a sign of things to come, yikes.


Who's the "champion" of WotC characterizing "us" as "what"? What does this mean? I could make assumptions but I'd prefer clarifications before I do.

----------


## Atranen

> Well, the whole scenario of people quiet-quitting the table (or outright throwing a fit?) purely because the DM stood up for their vision of the world and the game they wanted to run doesn't match _my_ experience. Moreover, I think the chilling effect of constraining creativity is by far a more common scenario than group-damaging conflict.


No fits, as I've been clear about more than a half dozen times now. I suppose we'll have to chalk it up to YMMV, absent any data. 




> I don't think being connected to a multiverse has to mean "all species allowed." That's a false equivalency. In this very thread, I've explicitly said that I wouldn't want to run a Krynn game with Plasmoids as one example. (I could potentially see allowing Autognomes though, I could see a few of them emerging from Mt. Nevermind one day.)


"Use these possibilities to play any species you want" is the language in Dragonlance; all species (or if you prefer, any species) allowed is clearly stated in the language I object to. 




> Whereas I think DMs willing to accommodate these concepts are promoting not just creativity and accessibility, but outright skill. This is not to say that those who want more constraints aren't skilled, but I'll think much more highly of the ones willing to try than not.


Agree to disagree. 




> I'm still to this moment not sure why but I care more about the result anyway, so I appreciate it nonetheless.


In an earlier post, you yourself suggested *including* "ask your GM"; then you said you didn't see any difference between "ask your GM" and what Dragonlance has; now you say you do see a difference and it's important. Because of this, it was difficult to understand your argument. 

Lead with your last post next time and we can resolve this quickly.




> Just because it doesn't restate what is in the PHB (over and over and over across every book with a chargen section) does not imply a conflict with the PHB though.


Correct. But in this case, there is a conflict.

----------


## Psyren

> In an earlier post,


I'm not doing the "earlier post" dance with you again. We finally agreed we're on the same page now, let's keep it that way.




> No fits, as I've been clear about more than a half dozen times now. I suppose we'll have to chalk it up to YMMV, absent any data.


Then if all it is is some form of quiet-quitting, that's even more reason to discount it in favor of the upside I stated. Hence the approach WotC is taking.




> "Use these possibilities to play any species you want" is the language in Dragonlance; all species (or if you prefer, any species) allowed is clearly stated in the language I object to.


Yes, *any*, as you yourself just quoted. 




> Agree to disagree.


Fine.




> Correct. But in this case, there is a conflict.


Life is conflict. Conflicts can be resolved when adults are involved. I don't believe the proposed steps of preventing this one, if they would even work (which we have no guarantee of) are worth it.

----------


## Atranen

> I'm not doing the "earlier post" dance with you again. We finally agreed we're on the same page now, let's keep it that way.


I'm not holding your feet to the fire, you just wondered why it took so long.




> Then if all it is is some form of quiet-quitting, that's even more reason to discount it in favor of the upside I stated. Hence the approach WotC is taking.


This doesn't get you out of YMMV land, but nice try. 




> Yes, *any*, as you yourself just quoted.


Any species is playable and all species are playable are functionally identical. If you think otherwise, why?




> Life is conflict. Conflicts can be resolved when adults are involved. I don't believe the proposed steps of preventing this one, if they would even work (which we have no guarantee of) are worth it.


Ok. So there is a conflict with the PHB, but it's ok because adults are involved?

----------


## Psyren

> This doesn't get you out of YMMV land, but nice try.


I'm not trying to get out of any "land." I'm saying why I think this fear would be dismissed by WotC, it rings hollow.




> Any species is playable and all species are playable are functionally identical. If you think otherwise, why?


Because "all" means every race _is_ there and you need to figure out why. "Any" means you only need to justify the ones you and the players agree on being there.




> Ok. So there is a conflict with the PHB, but it's ok because adults are involved?


No, there's a _potential_ conflict between the players and the DM (the "mismatched expectations" you've been harping on.) I don't see a conflict between the _books_ at all.

----------


## JadedDM

> (I could potentially see allowing Autognomes though, I could see a few of them emerging from Mt. Nevermind one day.)


Originally, Autognomes were created by Tinker Gnomes.  Tinker Gnomes were a big part of the original Spelljammer setting.  They were also responsible for breeding giant space hamsters.  For whatever reason, they decided to change all of that for 5E.

----------


## OldTrees1

> Any species is playable and all species are playable are functionally identical. If you think otherwise, why?
> 			
> 		
> 
> Because "all" means every race _is_ there and you need to figure out why. "Any" means you only need to justify the ones you and the players agree on being there.


??? No.

"Any species is playable" means every member of the set "Species" has the characteristic "is playable". Otherwise there would exist a species that is not playable, thus contradicting the original sentence.
"All species are playable" means every member of the set "Species" has the characteristic "is playable". Otherwise there would exist a species that is not playable, thus contradicting the original sentence.

They are the exact same.

For example "any prime number is a number" implies "all prime numbers are numbers".


The only difference between "any individual has characteristic XYZ" and "all individuals have characteristic XYZ" is if there is a finite supply of "having characteristic XYZ" that gets used up. 
For example
"Anyone can buy a ticket to the 30 seat show""Everyone can buy a ticket to the 30 seat show"

----------


## Psyren

> ??? No.


!!! Yes.




> "Any species is playable" means every member of the set "Species" has the characteristic "is playable". Otherwise there would exist a species that is not playable, thus contradicting the original sentence.


The set "is playable" and the set "exists in _your_ campaign" are not synonymous unless you make them. Moreover, every player race they print would be "playable" no matter what additional text they printed, otherwise they wouldn't be in a character creation chapter in any book.




> Originally, Autognomes were created by Tinker Gnomes.  Tinker Gnomes were a big part of the original Spelljammer setting.  They were also responsible for breeding giant space hamsters.  For whatever reason, they decided to change all of that for 5E.


Tinker Gnomes and Rock Gnomes are the same thing (or at the very least one is a subset of the other) in 5e. So the Tinker Gnomes on Krynn making Autognomes is not an impossibility.

----------


## MoiMagnus

> ??? No.
> 
> "Any species is playable" means every member of the set "Species" has the characteristic "is playable". Otherwise there would exist a species that is not playable, thus contradicting the original sentence.
> "All species are playable" means every member of the set "Species" has the characteristic "is playable". Otherwise there would exist a species that is not playable, thus contradicting the original sentence.
> 
> They are the exact same.
> 
> For example "any prime number is a number" implies "all prime numbers are numbers".
> 
> ...


I think the issues is the implicit part.

In the way Psyren is using it, "All species are playable" has an implicit "at once in the same universe", while "Any species is playable" has an implicit "independently from one another,  each player choice leading to a different universe".

This subtlety is particularly visible when you have the choice between option A/B/C/D and someone tells you "you can take any of them" vs "you can take all of them". While both are IMO somewhat ambiguous and it's better to be more explicit, my default interpretation would by "only take one" for the former and "you can take many" for the latter.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> You mean like suggesting someone is being tone deaf, insensitive, accusing me of only being able to engage with perceived "unfairness", saying that my arguments can be dismissed because of that and that each and every argument proposed to you can be simplified as a straw man.


I said _some posters_... you are taking that as a personal attack on you. I don't know why, we've barely engaged. I've been following this thread since page 1 and my first post is on page 2. You posted on page... 20? 21? I don't know why you think I'm singling you out.

I accused you of turning a blind eye to other "unfairness", because this thread is riddled with people having to defend themselves and clarify their positions over and over and over again as other posters mischaracterize them. So yeah, you coming in here and singling me out for bad behavior is laughable (to me) and makes me squint my eyes at your other comments.



> I'll be blunt here - since I've entered this discussion, you're the only one here who's gone out of their way to be dismissive and refused to seek any common ground here.


Right, more incorrect assessments. It's fine, I don't mind. This is the risk inherent in posting online.

The truth is in reverse. We've been told over and over and over again that there isn't an issue, we don't know how to manage a table, our expectations are unreasonable, we want to squelch fun, etc etc. Very little effort has been made to find common ground there. Meanwhile, a tremendous amount of effort has been exerted trying to pin down exactly why the language in the sidebar can't be slightly modified. Atranen has achieved sainthood through his efforts in this thread alone.



> Even the other users I've vocalized my disagreement with have made strides to agree where they see as fair, as I have also. You haven't, you've only attacked others character and accused them of having ulterior motives, and I find that unconscionable.


You and I literally responded to each other several times and I never attacked you lol. Your argument was it wasn't necessary because it's redundant. I pointed out that the entire sidebar is redundant except it lacks the DM part. You... somehow were okay with this redundancy because it... somehow points people back to the PHB, therefore removing the need for redundancy  :Small Confused: . Okay, that's fine. That's your opinion. I don't find it strong or particularly compelling, and I feel very comfortable saying that.

@MoiMagnus - Understood, but it's a very slight distinction and doesn't really speak to the change in the setting. Previously, it seems to me the answer to "Does x race exist here?" would be "No, but if you want it to, there can be an explanation for that". Now the answer to that question is "Yes, there are any number of explanations to describe how." The sidebar is telling us those races exist there, and as mentioned previously in the thread, if you have more than one player wanting to play something "not native", the distinction gets greater and greater.

----------


## Segev

Can we agree that there is a difference in tone and expectation set by the following, even if technically the denotative result is the same?

Option 1: "Everything in this book is normally available to PCs, but DMs may restrict them for particular campaigns."

Option 2: "These things are typically available, and this extended list might be available if the DM permits it for particular campaigns."

----------


## Atranen

> I'm not trying to get out of any "land." I'm saying why I think this fear would be dismissed by WotC, it rings hollow.


And I think your concern rings hollow. YMMV.




> Because "all" means every race _is_ there and you need to figure out why. "Any" means you only need to justify the ones you and the players agree on being there.


This is the difference between "any species exists in the setting" and "all species exist in the setting". 

It is not the difference between "all species are playable" and "any species is playable". Neither implies "all species exist in the setting". They both are consistent with "any species exists in the setting". 

Please be precise with your statements.

----------


## EggKookoo

> Can we agree that there is a difference in tone and expectation set by the following, even if technically the denotative result is the same?
> 
> Option 1: "Everything in this book is normally available to PCs, but DMs may restrict them for particular campaigns."
> 
> Option 2: "These things are typically available, and this extended list might be available if the DM permits it for particular campaigns."


I definitely see a difference.

The issue, to my mind, is really just where this information is presented. The PHB should say something to the effect of "D&D has a plethora of races (or whatever options we're talking about) but each setting has its own flavor. Check with your DM to see if the setting in which your game takes place has any limitations on those options. Some settings are more open than others." Then a given setting sourcebook should list what's normally available in that setting.

----------


## Dr.Samurai

> Please be precise with your statements.


Best of luck!



> I definitely see a difference.
> 
> The issue, to my mind, is really just where this information is presented. The PHB should say something to the effect of "D&D has a plethora of races (or whatever options we're talking about) but each setting has its own flavor. Check with your DM to see if the setting in which your game takes place has any limitations on those options. Some settings are more open than others." Then a given setting sourcebook should list what's normally available in that setting.


It is worth noting as well that the wording in the Dragonlance sidebar is virtually applicable to any D&D setting, since they are all part of the multiverse and have ancient times and cataclysms. This sidebar can just as easily be in the player's handbook:

_"Some settings have species that are native to that setting, but are also populated by species not native to that setting. These species may have come over from a portal, or in a spelljammer, or may have been around since long ago, predating ancient catastrophes. Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across any of these settings."_

Which brings us back to the watering down and changing of the lore.

----------


## EggKookoo

> Best of luck!
> 
> It is worth noting as well that the wording in the Dragonlance sidebar is virtually applicable to any D&D setting, since they are all part of the multiverse and have ancient times and cataclysms. This sidebar can just as easily be in the player's handbook:
> 
> _"Some settings have species that are native to that setting, but are also populated by species not native to that setting. These species may have come over from a portal, or in a spelljammer, or may have been around since long ago, predating ancient catastrophes. Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across any of these settings."_
> 
> Which brings us back to the watering down and changing of the lore.


Well, okay, there's another issue. Namely that all D&D settings are actually part of a big single multiverse. I mean, in principle, sure, but not in practice. The setting that I'm currently running is not part of any multiverse.

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## Dr.Samurai

I'm afraid, as per the PHB, your setting exists in the multiverse as well...




> The worlds of the Dungeons & Dragons game exist within a vast cosmos called the multiverse, connected in strange and mysterious ways to one another and 10 other planes or existence, such as the Elemental Plane of Fire and the infinite Depths of the Abyss. Within this multiverse are an endless variety of worlds.
> 
> Many of them have been published as official settings for the D&D game. The legends of the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Mystara, and Eberron settings are woven together in the fabric of the multiverse. *Alongside these worlds are hundreds of thousands more, created by generations of D&D players for their own games.* And amid all the richness of the multiverse, you might create a world of your own.


So... any species can be found there.

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## Atranen

I missed a few posts; responding to them here. 




> ??? No.
> 
> "Any species is playable" means every member of the set "Species" has the characteristic "is playable". Otherwise there would exist a species that is not playable, thus contradicting the original sentence.
> "All species are playable" means every member of the set "Species" has the characteristic "is playable". Otherwise there would exist a species that is not playable, thus contradicting the original sentence.
> 
> They are the exact same.


Correct. 




> The set "is playable" and the set "exists in _your_ campaign" are not synonymous unless you make them. Moreover, every player race they print would be "playable" no matter what additional text they printed, otherwise they wouldn't be in a character creation chapter in any book.


Oddly, Psyren gets the difference between 'is playable' and 'exists in your campaign'. Because as soon as you get that difference, it is clear that switching 'any' for 'all' changes meaning for 'exists in your campaign' but not for 'is playable'. 




> I think the issues is the implicit part.
> 
> In the way Psyren is using it, "All species are playable" has an implicit "at once in the same universe", while "Any species is playable" has an implicit "independently from one another,  each player choice leading to a different universe".
> 
> This subtlety is particularly visible when you have the choice between option A/B/C/D and someone tells you "you can take any of them" vs "you can take all of them". While both are IMO somewhat ambiguous and it's better to be more explicit, my default interpretation would by "only take one" for the former and "you can take many" for the latter.


I get the A/B/C/D example; I'm not convinced it maps onto the 'at the table' scenario. No one is going to play all species simultaneously; they are only going to play one. So I don't think 'all species are playable' implies 'you can play A/B/C/D all at once', but rather 'A/B/C/D are available to pick'. 




> Atranen has achieved sainthood through his efforts in this thread alone.


Thank you  :Small Smile: 




> Can we agree that there is a difference in tone and expectation set by the following, even if technically the denotative result is the same?
> 
> Option 1: "Everything in this book is normally available to PCs, but DMs may restrict them for particular campaigns."
> 
> Option 2: "These things are typically available, and this extended list might be available if the DM permits it for particular campaigns."


Yes!




> It is worth noting as well that the wording in the Dragonlance sidebar is virtually applicable to any D&D setting, since they are all part of the multiverse and have ancient times and cataclysms. This sidebar can just as easily be in the player's handbook:
> 
> _"Some settings have species that are native to that setting, but are also populated by species not native to that setting. These species may have come over from a portal, or in a spelljammer, or may have been around since long ago, predating ancient catastrophes. Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across any of these settings."_
> 
> Which brings us back to the watering down and changing of the lore.


I expect to see some version of this in the OneD&D PHB.

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## Brookshw

> I'm afraid, as per the PHB, your setting exists in the multiverse as well...
> 
> So... any species can be found there.


I'm afb, but doesn't the DMG say you can chuck the cosmology and multiverse, and create your own thing entirely?

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## Dr.Samurai

> I'm afb, but doesn't the DMG say you can chuck the cosmology and multiverse, and create your own thing entirely?


The year is 2024. Mobs of rabid players empowered by WotC roam the streets, burning DMGs in giant bonfires. Former game masters are hunted down by the AI chatbot constructs created to replace them. These robots are slaves to the new wave of players, programmed to grant them their every decadent wish.

In the secret underground is a movement of DMs, unplugging players from the "multiverse", and teaching them what "settings" are, and "lore". Using scraps snatched from the mounds of ash in the streets, avoiding the spotlights of the DM chatbots, they cobble together a new Dungeon Master's Guide, awaiting the arrival of the One that will restore balance to D&D.

A young boy looks up, disconnected from the multiverse for the first time, and says "You mean I don't have to play a Winged Plasmoid Sorcadin Hexblade, optimized for 2 turn ambush combats?". A weary DM rebel, covered in scars, smiles and says "No, you can play a hero. A simple human or dwarf fighter, traveling through a living breathing world full of wonder and adventure."

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## EggKookoo

> I'm afraid, as per the PHB, your setting exists in the multiverse as well...
> 
> So... any species can be found there.


I happen to know the author of that setting and he assures me that's not the case. I know that the PHB thinks WotC is the creator of my setting. I can't help that. They're simply wrong.

The MM also thinks cats shouldn't have Darkvision, so let's not get hung up on WotC's infallibility.




> The year is 2024. Mobs of rabid players empowered by WotC roam the streets, burning DMGs in giant bonfires. Former game masters are hunted down by the AI chatbot constructs created to replace them. These robots are slaves to the new wave of players, programmed to grant them their every decadent wish.
> 
> In the secret underground is a movement of DMs, unplugging players from the "multiverse", and teaching them what "settings" are, and "lore". Using scraps snatched from the mounds of ash in the streets, avoiding the spotlights of the DM chatbots, they cobble together a new Dungeon Master's Guide, awaiting the arrival of the One that will restore balance to D&D.
> 
> A young boy looks up, disconnected from the multiverse for the first time, and says "You mean I don't have to play a Winged Plasmoid Sorcadin Hexblade, optimized for 2 turn ambush combats?". A weary DM rebel, covered in scars, smiles and says "No, you can play a hero. A simple human or dwarf fighter, traveling through a living breathing world full of wonder and adventure."


This is the future liberals want!

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## Psyren

> And I think your concern rings hollow. YMMV.


I'm trying to explain to you the likely reason why WotC is doing what they're doing. Your choice to listen or not.




> It is not the difference between "all species are playable" and "any species is playable". Neither implies "all species exist in the setting".


And this is another point where we fundamentally disagree, so asking for additional "precision" is not going to be helpful when our premises are diametrically opposed.




> Can we agree that there is a difference in tone and expectation set by the following, even if technically the denotative result is the same?
> 
> Option 1: "Everything in this book is normally available to PCs, but DMs may restrict them for particular campaigns."
> 
> Option 2: "These things are typically available, and this extended list might be available if the DM permits it for particular campaigns."


I think we managed to agree on something like this if I'm reading it correctly.

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## Atranen

> I'm trying to explain to you the likely reason why WotC is doing what they're doing. Your choice to listen or not.


You have inside access to WOTC discussions?




> And this is another point where we fundamentally disagree, so asking for additional "precision" is not going to be helpful when our premises are diametrically opposed.


You think "all species are playable" implies "all species exist in the setting"?

See, if you were precise I wouldn't have to keep asking you to clarify what you mean  :Small Tongue:

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## Psyren

> You have inside access to WOTC discussions?


No, hence "likely." But corporations are predictable in multiple ways.




> You think "all species are playable" implies "all species exist in the setting"?


Yes, which is why they use "any" rather than "all." Precise enough?

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## Kane0

> The year is 2024. Mobs of rabid players empowered by WotC roam the streets, burning DMGs in giant bonfires. Former game masters are hunted down by the AI chatbot constructs created to replace them. These robots are slaves to the new wave of players, programmed to grant them their every decadent wish.
> 
> In the secret underground is a movement of DMs, unplugging players from the "multiverse", and teaching them what "settings" are, and "lore". Using scraps snatched from the mounds of ash in the streets, avoiding the spotlights of the DM chatbots, they cobble together a new Dungeon Master's Guide, awaiting the arrival of the One that will restore balance to D&D.
> 
> A young boy looks up, disconnected from the multiverse for the first time, and says "You mean I don't have to play a Winged Plasmoid Sorcadin Hexblade, optimized for 2 turn ambush combats?". A weary DM rebel, covered in scars, smiles and says "No, you can play a hero. A simple human or dwarf fighter, traveling through a living breathing world full of wonder and adventure."


Current debates aside, sounds like a fun premise for a game. Like a D&Dified Matrix

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## Atranen

> No, hence "likely." But corporations are predictable in multiple ways.


Why is this more likely than any other possible justification?




> Yes, which is why they use "any" rather than "all." Precise enough?


That's just logically false. "All species are playable" does not imply "all species exist in the setting". It's not a matter of different premises.

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## Psyren

> Why is this more likely than any other possible justification?


Because selling books is D&D's main business. The stance that encourages allowing material rather than banning it is thus the safer bet.




> That's just logically false. "All species are playable" does not imply "all species exist in the setting". It's not a matter of different premises.


"All species are playable whether they exist or not" is logical to you?

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## Atranen

> Because selling books is D&D's main business. The stance that encourages allowing material rather than banning it is thus the safer bet.


Ok, you can keep offering justification, but until you find a WOTC statement to that effect, or internal communication showing the same, it's all just blowing smoke. Maybe they did it because a higher up at Hasbro wants to play an exotic species. We'll never know. 




> "All species are playable whether they exist or not" is logical to you?


That's not what I said. I said "all species are playable" does not imply "all species exist in the campaign world". For example, if I want to play species Y, it is playable (and exists in the campaign world), because all species are playable. However if no one wants to play species Y, it may not exist in the campaign world.

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## Psyren

> Ok, you can keep offering justification, but until you find a WOTC statement to that effect, or internal communication showing the same, it's all just blowing smoke. Maybe they did it because a higher up at Hasbro wants to play an exotic species. We'll never know.


You say I'm blowing smoke, I say you're blowing smoke, impasse yet again. Moving on.




> That's not what I said. I said "all species are playable" does not imply "all species exist in the campaign world". For example, if I want to play species Y, it is playable (and exists in the campaign world), because all species are playable. However if no one wants to play species Y, it may not exist in the campaign world.


Above is in fact exactly what I mean by "any," and that is exactly why WotC themselves consistently use the word "any" across their books. Examples:

Dragonlance: _"Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn"_ (SotDQ)
Eberron: _"Eberron can be home to any of the creatures found across the D&D multiverse"_ (WGtE)
Spelljammer: _"When you create a character for a campaign or an adventure set in Wildspace or the Astral Sea, you can choose from any of the options that the D&D game provides, including those described in this chapter"_ (SAiS)
Ravenloft: _"Although humans predominate many of the Domains of Dread, adventurers in Ravenloft can belong to any race in the Players Handbook or other sources."_ (VRGtR)

They do not do the same with "all races/species" or "every race/species." The logical conclusion behind that word choice is that they see a distinction there - just like I do.

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## Roland St. Jude

*Sheriff*: Thread closed for review.

----------

