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Alright I’ll bite. What did they do to it?
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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.
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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.
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?
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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.
…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
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.
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”?
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Polar bears and grizzly bears too.
or homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis
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.
@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 happenedbro basically everyone outside of africa has neanderthal and denisovan heritage, our ancestors had TONS of kids with other human species.
Good ol’ reliable undead. Trusty skeleton-to-lich scale of complexity fits every scenario. Can be evil, good, or mindless as needed.
The best lore is lore made at the table with the players. The rest is just gm inspiration.
Yeah, my friends and I always used Forgotten Realms lore as a base in homebrew settings and then just do whatever on top of it, like that one time we had chocobos in a campaign LOL
I read the Forgotten Realms books for 3.5 like books because most of them is lore and not necessarily rules, and I think it was pretty dope back then. I would always use it for the basis of my campaigns, but I would place it somewhere that didn’t have a lot of stuff already written about it so I could kinda of do my own thing while still having all the content and the ability to use things I didn’t create if it made sense to do so.
Slightly unpopular opinion: All official lore is crap and should be generally ignored. (Even the stuff I kind of like) If I want to play in a world where what I can do is limited by the generic, inoffensive, middle-of-the-road, crowd-pleasing writers at some corporation I’ll just play a AAA video game. The ability to be participatory in the creation and evolution of the in-game world is what makes TTRPGs different from consumer media. Why would you give that part up, but still leave yourself with all the cognitive load?
I disagree. I think having a base to work from is helpful, both to players and DMs.
For example I don’t want to create a pantheon of gods. I might want to create a few unique gods within my setting, and if they conflict I’ll change some rules accordingly, but I want something to build off of. Similarly if a player wants to create a paladin or cleric they can just pull from the standard list.
Also if the official lore is fun, it’s more fun to build off of. I’ll enjoy reading it more and I’ll enjoy using it.
Absolutely agree. I set a game in the real(ish) world once, so it was a setting where everyone knew the base “lore.” It was so nice! I could reference things, name-drop countries, and introduce old grudges without having to exposition it all. People just got things. We’ve since done enough games on the sword coast that that works too, now.
Slightly surprised I didn’t get more disagreement.
A prebuilt system has one benefit: the players and DM come to the table with a shared set of expectations. This is crucial for things like adventurer’s league, where the players are all strangers, more or less engaging in a tournament without winners, each using the others to get their RPG rocks off, and can be useful to skip the mechanical design level of play-making. It also makes sense for a corporation to try to hit that lowest common denominator to maximise their audience.
However, I maintain, if no one at the table is creative enough to want to world-build beyond that, they might as well all just stick with consumer media. Those who don’t feel the drive to create aren’t suited to DMing, and a table without a DM is a hetero orgy without a woman.
I’m also surprised and disagree again.
I’m running a campaign now and jmit takes place in the Underdark. Guess what, they worship Lolth and are pretty evil. I’ve got some Duergar down there too. I took ideas of the Drow city straight from the Into the Abyss module. I didn’t use the exact city, but it was my base of ideas.
Additionally I’ve taken ideas from the Acquisitions Incorporated book and made the item “Orrery of the Wanderer” a key part of my story. The reason I did that was because I found it to be an interesting item with interesting lore.
Look at it like Legos. If someone handed you a big crate full of Legos you could build something really cool. In fact you could build anything.
However if, instead of a big crate, someone handed me three medieval sets and a ninja set. If I build them exactly as instructed, I still get a cool set. Sure I would have a hard time making a WW2 fighter out of the medieval and ninja sets, but that’s ok. And if I tweak the sets a little I still get something that is my own.
Sounds like you have a table where the worldbuilding has a big place. That’s awesome but I really feel that worldbuilding is only one, arguably secondary, aspect of RPGs and not even the only one where creativity expresses itself.
Even if we stay focused on the world building aspect of the game, when playing in a pre-defined setting, you can still find plenty of uses for your creativity to fill the gaps that will present themselves as your game unfolds (that is if you’re not playing at a table full of FR nerds that read every single novel and campaign setting out there several times over).
Plus, many come to a point in life where it’s complicated to spend more than a few hours each week on TTRPGs. I’d rather spend time fleshing out characters, scenes and encounters than coming up with a pantheon of gods, most of whom will never come up in game. Sure, worldbuilding doesn’t have to imply heaps of prep ; you can improvise a lot on the spot. But I’ve already got enough shit to track and remember before/during/after game time.
Personally, I also feel much more confortable GMing in a world that’s well fleshed out. Sure, I can do it myself but it will simply take me down way too many rabbit holes and will proabably end up with me delaying sessions because I was too busy writing the grand history of that neighborhing kingdom the PCs probably won’t visit rather than doing proper prep.
Not to mention that there is a lot of creativity to be expressed when you have actual constraints, constraints like an existing world for example. And if that world is too bland or consensual to my taste I’m always free to spice it up as I please, because you know, creativity.
Certainly, RPGs are first and foremost a game of creativity and imagination but I don’t think that the want to worldbuild is, on its own, a really good metric of how creative you are, nor that prefering pre-defined settings makes people wholly unworthy of the hobby.
And I want to add that if the fact that no women showed up at your hetero orgy ruined it for you, I think it’s because you clearly haven’t been creative enough.
Succinctly, I would say any GM who says ‘I don’t want to spend my time thinking about the in-game world’ is just someone who would be happier as a player but is taking one for the team. In the metaphor, he’s the guy at the orgy squeezing a fleshlight between his thighs and wearing a wig so his buddies can pretend. He’s trying to be creative with what’s lying around. However, everyone would be happier if he wasn’t in that position. They’re all just too desperate to go elsewhere. I mean, it’s really nice of the guy to do that for his friends, but it’s not really what they showed up for.
You seem to be implying that I said or meant to say that. No way have I advocated that GMs should not think about the in-game world or that a GM that doesn’t think or want to think about the in-game world wouldn’t possibly be better off as a player.
Please don’t move the posts too much. There is a huge difference between simply thinking about the in-game world and building your own from scratch. Using a pre-defined setting does not mean that you cannot mull over it or adapt it to your tastes and needs, possibly investing significant time and creativity, possibly more than what some GMs invest into their homebrew worlds.
Is world-building a worthy endeavor to undertake or advocate for? Certainly. Does world-building generally demonstrate significant investment on behalf of the GM (and of the players if they participate)? Certainly.
Does world-building from scratch automatically make your game better? I’ve seen enough people coming in with their rather bland and boring homebrew world that just rehash plenty of overdone tropes to seriously doubt that (tough I’m certainly not arguing that pre-defined settings are automatically better either). And even if it did, one of my points is that there is a lot of others things, arguably more important, that contribute to the overall quality of a given campaign.
Are you a ‘bad’ GM unworthy of the title and of your friends time if you don’t build your own world? This is just a form of patronizing gate-keeping. You are certainly entitled to prefer homebrew worlds, to express no interest in playing a campaign in a pre-defined setting, to have beef with any or all existing settings, or generally finding that world-building is the only thing you really like about ttrpgs. But not only is the diversity of approaches, foci, and overall nature of tables a wonderful thing about ttrpgs, I strongly believe we can leave players decide for themselves whether or not their GM is ‘suitable’ as you put it, and this based on their own criteria. In a world where GMs only have a finite prep time during sessions, I find it rather unfair and a little rude to imply that they are running shitty games if they choose to rely on preexisting material to help them run their game.
Besides, GMing relies on a huge skill-set that extends far beyond the ability or desire to world-build and far beyond what most human beings can master. Like I said, you can certainly decide which skills a GM needs to have to be ‘suitable’ to run a game for you. In practice, it is just not tenable to expect any GM to master all of them, so while you can certainly argue that worldbuilding is a fundamental part of ttrpgs, I find it unbeckoning to automatically dismiss any GM that choose to focus their efforts on other aspects.
For one, designing NPCs, encounters, etc. is worldbuilding. You wouldn’t say a painter had stopped painting because they switched from a 3" brush to a 000. This part is just a semantic misunderstanding.
It’s not really a matter of good or bad. I’m not saying ‘good DMs worldbuild and bad DMs steal others’ creations.’ I’m saying ‘Why buy an expensive kit just to make a dorodango?’
You can clearly recognise how much work it is to play/run a TTRPG. (scheduling, planning, worldbuilding, session prep level worldbuilding, player counseling and conflict resolution, game mechanism/in-world effect translation in both directions, mechanical balancing, other things I’m not thinking of just now) The whole point of doing all that work is that it grants freedom.
‘Worth’ is absolutely a subjective concept but I say it’s pretty silly to do all the work it takes to play, only to play something locked into preconceived notions, and especially notions that are designed to be lowest-common-denominator to the general population by someone who isn’t even at the table. You can disagree if you like, of course, but it’s not a matter of right/wrong.
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This is probably why Greg Stafford, the guy most responsible for Runequest and Glorantha’s deep and wide lore came up with his sort of prime directive: “Your Glorantha Will Vary”. He presented his version of the lore but wanted people to re-write it to their hearts’ content.
Old world of darkness lore slapped though
There was a bit too much of it, but that actually was the reason I included the ‘even the ones I like’ part. Old WoD didn’t pull its punches, and generally was not middle-of-the-road.
I’m gonna need some context
Play Pathfinder, like an adult.
Pathfinder is superior to D&D ethically, morally and mechanically. Fight me.
I’ll fight you! In a game of Pathfinder of course.
Roll Lore: Gaming for initiative!
I got two wizards and a skull. What the fuck is up with these dice
I agree, but D&D’s simpler mechanics means newer players won’t get overwhelmed and will let them learn how to do the other, less crunchy parts of RPGs that they would have little to no experience in. Its popularity also means there are more sources to look for help. (If anyone yells at me to look at a simpler TTRPG, Utopia is amazing and is simple enough (excepting the crafting). I would just like newer players to have more resources they can research).
Let people play what they want to play.
Sure, but every time someone’s like “I’m going to do a game of secret modern day vampires doing political intrigue in DND” I’m going to judge them.
Sorry, wanted it to come off as a joke. I think Pathfinder is better, but I love dnd too.
Doesn’t mean people can’t give and receive recommendations!
Right, but I don’t think calling people children for playing one game over another is the way to do it.
No, that’s true.
I’m over here enjoying Changeling: the Dreaming.
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Branch out and play all kinds of systems!
Would love to, but I don’t have that amount of time or money.
Play GURPS, like a real adult.
I have the same reaction with the gameplay as well.
They somehow managed to add more crunch and complexity without improving neither the balance nor the turn-to-turn variety. I’m honestly impressed by their sheer incompetence.
Them: “We’ll be taking advice from the community!!!”
Me: Oh no. Oh well, Pathfinder it is!
Ergh, I always ignore the lore anyway.
I sometimes steal pieces of it, if only for inspiration, but I love worldbuilding and making up my own settings.
I’m currently running an adventure in a Spelljammer setting where most of the previous D&D campaigns I’ve run over the years exist on different planets, with elements of all of them now able to make cameos or interact with each other. It’s wild.
I’m reminded of the story of Garg and Moonslicer, and I wish more publishers would lean in to this approach to good and evil. A purely lore approach would be enough to frame the conflict around, some races are naturally social creatures, and some races are naturally antisocial. Both have hierarches, but not all races have the same natural concepts of fairness and justice. Any individual can embrace either world view or a mix, but one comes more naturally to each race. Even if humanity is naturally a good race (debatable, but whatever), members can obviously deviate significantly.
Ultimately it doesn’t mater what race the slavers are, I’m not going to worry about the ethics of self-defensing a party of slavers to death as PC or GM.
I swear if this is more whining about the Orcs…
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Does D&D finally come with a lore?
Finally a playable game? (still the cost of 3?)
What do you mean, finally? Even 5e, the edition with the smallest amount of lore so far, has some.
Previous editions had a lot. The Forgotten Realms wiki is a pretty good place to go read through. And there’s other settings too, even if they have less content. Greyhawk, Eberron, to only name those I have in my library.
