Incredible Vehicle
(It's a blog.)
This is going to be a weird one maybe.
I keep trying to rationalize evil races in various ways, and I keep coming back to existential horror. I suppose the question becomes whether evil races ever had a choice— i.e. do they have moral agency? Normally this is apropos, although as I recall old editions of D&D didn’t care. A paladin (lawful good) mind-controlled to kill an innocent was still besmirched, so to speak. I think.
I was afraid this piece called Expectations and Entitlement Among Millenial Roleplayers was going to be, frankly, a shitshow. But it was actually quite reasonable! However, I still have some problems with it.
Full disclosure: I have no idea whether I’m a millenial or not. It depends on whether you put the cutoff at the early ’80s or later. Some people say early ’80s is the cutoff for Gen X. I’ve always felt someplace in between. Let’s say I probably skew milennial.
Let’s set aside the question of stereotypes, though. It’s too easy to rant and it’s not productive.
I should also stipulate that I’m operating under a time limit. My hands, you see, are unforgiving these days.
As of last week, I got my hands on the Monster Manual. Why haven’t I posted?
I had a cold for the last week or so. That combined with my RSI acting up over the last month or so has meant less time on the computer at home.
At a minimum I expect to have some thoughts on the Monster Manual soon. I’ve also spent a decent chunk of time reading about prep, and I want to share some of the most useful links I’ve found.
Until then, have a great day.
Speaking of sleep, did you notice that the rules don’t say you need to sleep? Now, this goes against the grain for a lot of people who enjoy D&D, and to some extent it bothered me. But this is another question of common sense, or rather, how much does your table give a shit about this particular issue?
Per a thread I saw, there was a question about elves and long rests. The write-up says they go into a trance for 4 hrs. However, when someone asked Mike Mearls about how this affected with a long rest, he said that they still need to rest for 8 hrs; they only need to “sleep” for 4.
So what’s the point of trance, then? My guess is that it has to do with the night watch. Let’s look at the blurb for long rests and see what emerges. My goal here is to accord the right amount of respect to the “trance” perk while keeping the rules for resting as simple as possible.
I’m trying to get over my hang-ups on prep. I’ve always struggled with it. What’s the right amount of prep? I suspect I think I err on the side of too much rather than too little. But at the same time I want to make sure I allow for interesting choices.
For now, though, I’m just trying to come up with plot hooks or plot ideas. It’s fun.
One thing I am using for inspiration, at least somewhat, is the list of 100 plot ideas in the 3.5 DMG.
My goal is to be able to come up with adventures with less fuss.
I don’t have a good system for taking notes or anything like that, unfortunately. I do have a new notebook I’m using to write down ideas for a one-shot I am planning on running. We’ll see if I can get it all together in time.
Does anyone out there have a system, technique, method, et al, they like for prep?
I shouldn’t spend too much time on the computer these days, on account of RSI. This will therefore be an exercise in not revising ad nauseum. I may not even have a decent conclusion.
The topic here is the question of evil demi-human or humanoid races.
As much as I want to sit back and relax, and just do some D&D, whenever I try to plan an adventure I like to inject some ambiguity or complexity.
In D&D, there are various intelligent/sapient humanoid races that are also by and large evil: goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, kobolds, and probably others. It’s always bothered me that these races are mostly just there to be killed. They’re an “other” where their evil is taken as read and you feel no qualms about killing them.
I thought about trying to inject some ambiguity, in the sense of goblins or orcs not just attacking because they can, because they’re “evil.” But something about this just didn’t sit right with me.
Here are some of my coping mechanisms.
There aren’t many magic weapons and armor in the 5E DMG basic rules. In fact, there really aren’t any to speak of beyond +1. Yeah, OK, if I wanted to peek at some 5E adventures, I’m sure I could find examples. But that would spoil the adventures! And I like assembling clues, OK? Humor me!
While sifting through the spell list, I noticed a certain spell: elemental weapon, a third level transmutation. (Oddly enough it’s a paladin spell exclusively.) You can enchant a weapon with elemental this or that, right? And what’s the damage bonus? You could actually guess and have a decent chance of being correct.
This time, it’s personal.™
Ahem.
So maybe “suboptimal builds” still has some life in it in the era of 5e.
One of my previous examples of a suboptimal build in 4e was a Dex-based elf fighter with spear. The thing is, an elf fighter actually works extremely well as a duelist, a ranged fighter, or even a dual-wielder! So let’s try something slightly odd: a dwarf rogue. (Seriously, it’s only a little weird: in 2e, dwarves could only be clerics, fighters, or thieves.)
The way encounter building works in 5e is similar to 4e. However it departs from the role-based allocation, and from the one-monster-per-character-based system.