When a Good Thing Might be a Problem
Journal 73 7-12 Nov. 2022
Let me start with not much writing got done this week. Only this time it wasn’t time management so much as it was my laptop experiencing problems and failing me. I have a broken desktop and now a problem laptop.
My charging cord won’t charge. I don’t know if the cord has a break in it, it’s been bent and chewed on by the cats, or if the port on the laptop is broken. Luckily, I have another port and have just received a thunderbolt charger to try out. Only, it only charged the internal battery not the main battery.
I have another battery to try and charge but that one is dead and might not work. So, here I am trying to write this journal with about 4 solid hours of battery life. Here we go.
Preface
Let me start by saying that I love 5th edition D&D and I think the design work on it has been pretty damn good. (I will save my disappointment that they originally said the game was going to have customizable “dials of complexity” and that I never got that version of the game).
I wholly support the main design philosophy; “That anyone can play anything they want to. That there are no penalties to choices.” Now to those of you who don’t understand one example of this is in the older editions racial (or lineage) choices would have +/- to them. All of the negatives were slowly erased from the game and I believe that was a good choice.
They then worked on presenting things along a “cultural bias” instead of a racial one, which I wholly approve of as well. There could be murderous groups of orcs, and there could be vegetarian farmer orcs. I love the dichotomy.
I love the overall design, I love the dropping of penalties, I love the idea of making everything multiversal, and all of the settings being accessible (at least in theory).
You would think I am against restrictions, but I’m not. Restrictions make better characters. But that is a separate thesis.
What’s my Point? What am I Saying?
Here’s my point. I believe the designers are making a mistake in bringing in their design philosophy when it specifically comes to setting material. The ability to play anything and everything sounds great, and I will admit as a player I often hate to be told NO on something. Especially when I have a great character idea.
I’m writing this in reaction to a video on YouTube. I discussions with my other friends on their thoughts and from those discussions I’ve formulated the basis of this post. I will admit there is a certain level of “knee-jerk reaction” going on here. Perhaps it looks better in writing in the new Dragonlance book? But based on the video I have issues.
I say that restrictions are good for the game, and for gamers. Every time I came to the table with a new character idea and then found out we were playing in a world where that idea would not function, I used the restrictions to make a better, or more interesting character.
Homebrew and “Setting Specific”
To explain that better, 90% of my gaming takes place in homebrew settings. Every campaign introduces a brand-new world, with new histories, characters, and usually lists of restrictions.
These restrictions are what make the setting unique. I have played in worlds without arcane casters, worlds where druids were villains killed on sight, with no elves, with no humans, that was still in the bronze age, and hundreds more. Literally at least a hundred different worlds.
Every time we start a new campaign the first question is: “What’s in and what’s out? What’s unique here?” And the DM usually has a packet of papers that are a primer on the setting and we get to work making characters.
Now, let’s get back to D&D official. This game has a number of unique settings that have been worked on and developed over multiple editions. And in every edition, they do make changes to include some of the new material. Dragonborn and Tiefling become a PHB race, so they get worked into the settings of Forgotten Realms in more numbers and we get little side-boxes that give hints of how they could be incorporated into other settings as well.
Sometimes this was handled well, and sometimes it was jammed into a setting and you were expected to just accept it. Now, in changing to 3rd and then 4th and then 5th edition I made observations on this and didn’t quite like it in all cases. But for the most part it didn’t affect me personally. I was playing homebrew.
Dragonlance
Then they announced Dragonlance. I still have a few of the 1st edition modules and the original book. It is one of my favorite series of novels and a very unique setting. Back when I was just starting to play D&D it was the first set of novels I read. It would be years before I read up on Forgotten Realms, and I’ve never read anything on Greyhawk other than the material included in characters’ backgrounds (Tasha, Vecna, etc).
I love Dragonlance. The Elmore art, the villains, the wars, the heroes. I love it all. So much so, that I even incorporated a “Cataclysm” event into my own world and novels. Though much further back in time (and with far worse effects on the world).
One of the things with Dragonlance is it separates itself from ALL of the “defaults.” There are no halflings, no orcs or goblins, no clerics, magic is highly restricted. In short, there are a lot of character creation restrictions to play in the setting. Unless you slid the timeline a little (then you can have back your Clerics and change up the arcane casters, but you still don’t have certain races in the game). On top of that, Kyrnn used to be cut off from Spelljammer space, making it in inaccessible. Now with the Multi-verse trend in the game and linking all of the settings that restriction was lifted.
Unrestricted
But in the above linked video they state that the game is restarting right at the beginning of the original trilogy, in the middle of no-gods, no healing, and the war just getting started. At the same time, they say you can play anything. You can play your orc cleric and halfling wizard.
I get the idea. I understand the need to be inclusive and allow everything.
But why are you playing in Dragonlance if you don’t want to adhere to what Dragonlance is? Hey, if you’re playing a bunch of heroes dropped in from a Spelljammer, that’s a cool story and I’m here for it. And perhaps the inclusion of clerics is handled in a sidebar on one of the pages and it gives you rules on how to play a cleric without a god. Maybe there are restrictions that cap to lower level magic until the time when the gods come back? (But I doubt it).
Bet you can play a wizard that never goes through the ordeals?
Some good lifted restrictions
Don’t get me wrong. I will be happy to see how they adapt to Bards and Sorcerers being allowed in the setting. Arcane casters who don’t have to kowtow to the towers of high sorcery. I hope they make some really good story/background (RP) material to work with for such characters.
I’m happy to have a setting that doesn’t have goblinoids as a default “all evil” destroy on sight race. (And yes I know default D&D has addressed and corrected that problem, but this setting removes them entirely).
But that does bring us around to another problem. Dragonborn versus Draconians. Dragonborn shouldn’t really exist…unless they’re redone as Draconians. And that could be a problem as the Draconions are created from foul magic and are evil, twisted creatures. Making your PC one of the few that managed to escape. But then you have to deal with everyone being afraid of you and hatred…? Yeah. This is the point where if my DM was making this as a homebrew he’d say that there are huge RP negatives to playing a dragonborn and suggest not.
Not a Gronard.
I feel like some of this has been just a long rant. I want to make sure my position is clear.
I believe that restrictions on character creation and to the world, create interesting characters and campaigns.
With the characters, I feel like working around restrictions makes you more creative. How can I be a wizard who defies the Towers? (As a bard or sorcerer? Or self taught?) No halflings? Well we have Kender (don’t get me started on the horrible ways these have been played in every game) and gnomes. And gnomes don’t get enough love.
But really its all about the setting. Why are you playing in Krynn instead of Oerth or Toril? It should be because of the stories. Because of what makes these settings different and unique. Why would you wash away all of that unique flavor just to make it “generic.”
The players handbook, the “default” is just generic setting. We should be avoiding smearing ‘generic’ on any named setting.
If it happens to Krynn, imagine what happens in the next setting books? I mean, Planescape is next and that one really is ALL inclusive and the main multi-versal book. So fine. But then let’s say they do Darksun? Are we going to have a party of warforged and reborn who don’t drink or eat and as such find the desert meaningless. How about a party of druids that just create hundreds of gallons of water at every village and then stay one step ahead of the dragon kings’ soldiers.
And I will admit I like the idea of playing both of those. But they really shouldn’t exist.
Second Point Against Me
I will stop one argument here.
The new dragonlance book is NOT a setting book. It’s just a large adventure book with a third of the book devoted to setting information. It is not meant to be inclusive of the whole world or actually set up a campaign like the old “Setting Books.”
As an adventure, it could really have a party of people drop in from another world and adapt to being in the middle of a war. It could have a number of conceits already written in sidebars about clerics without gods, creatures from another world, and all of my other problems sort of addressed. Because at the end of the day this is just an adventure. A singular story and nota guide to a whole world.
Unless the book is far larger than I believe it to be?
And of course, none of this is going to stop me from getting the book the day it comes out and loving the hell out of it. Just if I ever run it perhaps you won’t be able to do anything and everything.
Outro
I’m running late, as I’m writing this the morning of… with my semi-broken laptop. No writing this week, but I did run a D&D game and drew two maps in high detail. Have a little more work to finish those up. Also painted a bunch of minis.
Time goes by and I stay busy.
Thanks for reading, hopefully I wasn’t too much old man yelling at the clouds. I left out whole paragraphs I had planned. But let’s keep it sub-2000 words.
Thanks.
