Recent content by Paul Farquhar

You can make them different if you want too - “our elves are different” is even a well known trope (tropes that are used too much are called cliches). But you are probably not going to want to different-ise everything in the PHB. That makes the setting lose focus. Eberron sometimes sails a bit...

It’s a forum, of course opinion, and I dislike false modesty. Sometimes (most of the time) you need to abandon the old ones, and focus on the current ones. Andor. All Coke is revolting. Sticking “new” in the label just caused people to notice. Stick an “Old” label on the same stuff and your...

No, Spelljammer was poorly executed, lacked content and had ship combat rules that are simply not fun. There changes to the setting (such as getting rid of the sillly phlo stuff) were improvements. And VGR fixed a lot of the stupidities that were introduced in the 2nd edition boxed set. It’s an...

The vast majority of people who ever lived on this planet are not recoded in any history. The tiny fraction of people who do get recorded is entirely coincidental, yes. But there is no need for there to be any other dwarven wizards in the world in order for PC Bob to be a dwarven wizard...

I seem to recall an elven druid in Dragonlance, which wasn’t in accordance with either core rules or the original setting book.

Dragonlance overlapped into 2nd edition. So gained dwarven clerics. But I believe it was actually Unearthed Arcana that enabled dwarven clerics towards the of 1st edition, and there had been NPC dwarven clerics before that (a hard rule that PCs and NPCs were different).

That’s not what I mean. Even in 1st edition NPCs could have class levels. But the overwhelming majority (99.99% in 1st edition) did not. NPCs might be exceptional too, but most are not.

Very much a 1st edition thing. NPC classes and monster levels were a specifically 3rd addition thing. Now things are back to how they were in 1st edition (because that is the way to be flexible with regards setting).

But not everyone is equally proficient in the abilities they are granted by their species. Humans have the ability to run a mile in less than four minutes. That doesn’t mean all humans can do it. Cantrips obviously need to be learned in any case. Baby elves are not born knowing how to cast...

And might not have done so if that hadn’t been in the core rules (that many tables ignored). It’s not necessarily to the setting. You really haven’t understood the player character exceptionalism concept have you? There are no dwarven wizards in the armies because NPCs don’t have PC classes...

Has to apply to racial abilities too. Greyhawk’s elves are listed as fielding battalions of archers, not firebolters.

I’m out. I made the mistake of turning on the car radio whilst waiting at traffic lights.

Moorcock ain’t dead.

Initially, back in the 1990s. Then it was picked up by several computer games and adventures, and even appeared briefly in a movie. Icewind Dale lives on long after Drizzt is forgotten.

The whole fantasy genre is based around nostalgia for an imaginary past. And the D&D game was built by pastiching classic fantasy novels. Why would you expect fans to want something new?! But what this poll shows is that players like lots of different flavours of fantasy, there is no clear...