I think I more or less agree with where you’re coming from. Part of the fun of roleplaying is getting to explore darkness in a safe way. Not everyone is looking for that and that’s fine, but I definitely find it weird to have the core setting lean into a more “disney-fied” setting. Seems like it should offer options.
It’s probably a symptom of DND becoming so much more mainstream. You can’t please everyone, so the best they can do is minimally bother everyone which can end up pretty… OK. Not great, not terrible, and mostly uninspiring.
Those are my thoughts based just on what you said. I haven’t heard about any of this before now so those are just off the cuff.
A game about combat needs a world full of things for the players to mow down but also not feel bad about killing, and sometimes you need a bunch of Violent Dungeon Fodder that can think and plan and make tactical decisions and potentially be negotiated with.
I’m a bit confused by this. Why not have them be any other species, or combination of them? If they’re capable of being negotiated with shouldn’t the players feel as bad about killing them as anyone else? I feel like “self-defense” can do a lot of heavy lifting in dungeon crawls, I’ve never really noticed my players feeling bad about killing bandit dwarves or whatnot.
Shmups are pretty distinct from first person shooters. You could probably make a first person shmup, but its definitely not the norm nor do I know of any examples
Honestly, I’m a bit more confused now. I definitely agree that humans have a tendency to dehumanize others, but I wouldn’t consider this a good or healthy thing that we should just accept. So having a ruleset that says, canonically, “this group of sentient creatures is inherently evil” and not “this group of sentient creatures is believedtobe evil by this other group” you are encouraging the players to take an unnuanced view of the world.
However, as a gamemaster you have to allow your players to make two choices:
Are the monsters we are fighting people or not?
Does my character agree with me?
Isn’t this what the lore changes encourage, by not making a factual statement about the groups, so the players should ask themselves this question on a case-by-case basis and not simply based on what type of creature they are? And I’m not sure how the changes would prevent the narrative approach you describe. Saying that goblins and orcs live in human-like societies doesn’t prevent you from telling a story that’s analogous to what has happened between human societies.
Maybe we’re working off of different data points, what WotC material are specifically referring to for the changes?
Ah gotcha, I was wondering where I might’ve lost the thread. I would agree with everything you said there. But, putting a pin in that and going back to your original post, what are the lore changes that you dislike? I understand what you said regarding inter-species complications, but feel like I might have lost what you were saying after that.
As a player, sometimes I want to settle down with an Orc and make a bunch of Half-Orc Babies, but seeing the word “species” gives me pause. I know in real life cross-breeding different species of animals rarely goes well and the children are as a rule sterile, so can i ethically bring a baby into the world that I know is going to be sterile and is probably doing to have serious health problems?
I don’t get your problem here. Either the world that has half orcs declares if they are fine, or you are free to decide for yourself. Why bother yourself with some “knowledge” about the “real world”?
@ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling
Pretty sure this is already known but I’ll throw in the tidbit that in Ad&d 2nd Dark Sun, Muls were the progeny of humans and dwarves and were explicitly sterile so this is not exactly untrodden ground. Not saying it’s the way to go, just that it happened
Alright I’ll bite. What did they do to it?
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I enjoyed reading through that, thanks!
I think I more or less agree with where you’re coming from. Part of the fun of roleplaying is getting to explore darkness in a safe way. Not everyone is looking for that and that’s fine, but I definitely find it weird to have the core setting lean into a more “disney-fied” setting. Seems like it should offer options.
It’s probably a symptom of DND becoming so much more mainstream. You can’t please everyone, so the best they can do is minimally bother everyone which can end up pretty… OK. Not great, not terrible, and mostly uninspiring.
Those are my thoughts based just on what you said. I haven’t heard about any of this before now so those are just off the cuff.
I’m a bit confused by this. Why not have them be any other species, or combination of them? If they’re capable of being negotiated with shouldn’t the players feel as bad about killing them as anyone else? I feel like “self-defense” can do a lot of heavy lifting in dungeon crawls, I’ve never really noticed my players feeling bad about killing bandit dwarves or whatnot.
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…are you calling first person shooters “shmups”?
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Shmups are pretty distinct from first person shooters. You could probably make a first person shmup, but its definitely not the norm nor do I know of any examples
Honestly, I’m a bit more confused now. I definitely agree that humans have a tendency to dehumanize others, but I wouldn’t consider this a good or healthy thing that we should just accept. So having a ruleset that says, canonically, “this group of sentient creatures is inherently evil” and not “this group of sentient creatures is believed to be evil by this other group” you are encouraging the players to take an unnuanced view of the world.
Isn’t this what the lore changes encourage, by not making a factual statement about the groups, so the players should ask themselves this question on a case-by-case basis and not simply based on what type of creature they are? And I’m not sure how the changes would prevent the narrative approach you describe. Saying that goblins and orcs live in human-like societies doesn’t prevent you from telling a story that’s analogous to what has happened between human societies.
Maybe we’re working off of different data points, what WotC material are specifically referring to for the changes?
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Ah gotcha, I was wondering where I might’ve lost the thread. I would agree with everything you said there. But, putting a pin in that and going back to your original post, what are the lore changes that you dislike? I understand what you said regarding inter-species complications, but feel like I might have lost what you were saying after that.
I don’t get your problem here. Either the world that has half orcs declares if they are fine, or you are free to decide for yourself. Why bother yourself with some “knowledge” about the “real world”?
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or homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis
Polar bears and grizzly bears too.
the species thing isn’t exactly what you said. there are 3 things that can happen that i remember:
1: most cross-species breeding results in nothing.
2: some, like horses and donkeys, or tigers and lions, results in babies that will grow up normally except that they can’t breed themselves.
3: and rarely, like in grizzlies and polar bears, the result is a baby that will grow up perfectly and still be fertile
interbreeding in DnD would be the 3rd option.
bro basically everyone outside of africa has neanderthal and denisovan heritage, our ancestors had TONS of kids with other human species.
@ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling
Pretty sure this is already known but I’ll throw in the tidbit that in Ad&d 2nd Dark Sun, Muls were the progeny of humans and dwarves and were explicitly sterile so this is not exactly untrodden ground. Not saying it’s the way to go, just that it happened
Good ol’ reliable undead. Trusty skeleton-to-lich scale of complexity fits every scenario. Can be evil, good, or mindless as needed.