Reply To: D&D officially turning Forgotten Realms sights away from Euro inspired campaigns

[greyhunter88 1654xp 2]

Yea… I went on a bit of a rant, so I could see how my point could get misconstrued. OnePinMan is right, though. I have absolutely zero qualms with anyone playing whatever they want to play. I think that a group or a GM has an equal right to insist on only allowing certain types of characters into their games, but generally I’m of the belief that there’s a group and a game out there for everyone.

Though as mentioned earlier, if everyone is special, nobody is special. In Critical Role, for example, the plot point that Nott is a goblin disguised as a halfling lasted about one episode. At this point she just openly walks around in her goblin form, and people crack jokes about it. She hasn’t faced a single moment of prejudice, there have been no prospective pogroms, and if her Charisma was +4 instead of -3, everyone would acquiesce to her every whim.

Warhammer Fantasy is pretty “generic” Fantasy, but believe me, if you play an Elf in that setting, you FEEL it. The awe, the prejudice, the hatred, etc. Play an Elf Mage? Even more so.
That’s because the rest of your group, and in fact the world, are mostly comprised of human peasants, boatmen, innkeepers, etc. Even if you want to have an entire party of special snowflakes, you stand out from all of the NPCs.

My main fear is thus. Something like the Forgotten Realms is generic, because it needs to be. It allows any kind of character, and any kind of campaign. It’s the ‘default’ setting. If, in an attempt to be inclusive, they diversify the basic setting to the point where sourcebooks and new worlds cease to have any individual flavour, I think it’s detrimental for everyone.

I had this issue with the inclusion of the Monk in 3rd edition D&D. On a personal level, I always found it tonally jarring to have some dude in silk pants going around tanking hits and slaying dragons with his fists, alongside a guy covered in magical armour and wielding excalibur. In L5R, the same character and class fits in a lot better, because it is more sensical within the setting, and more integrated into the lore.

If they heavily integrate all of these new worlds and locations into the default setting, people are going to start demanding to use options from them in any game, for mechanical benefits or otherwise. If this leads to the standard D&D group being a medieval knight, Merlin, a Native American shaman, an Arabic genie caller, and an Egyptian mummy… that’s not going to feel diverse, it’s just going to feel boring.