Re: [Bell of Lost Souls] D&D 2024 Edition Heads Back To Greyhawk, Makes Aasimar A Default Option

On Wed, 22 May 2024 16:20:43 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

On 5/21/2024 9:01 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

I was never fond of Half-Orcs, but that's probably mostly because -
when we started playing - the race was almost always played as an
'evil' character... and evil PCs usually caused more problems for the
party than they were worth. It was always the same sort of players who
picked Half Orc characters too; they'd inevitably choose the assassin
class, backstab all the other characters, and then demand the DM give
them XP for the deed.

I don't remember any of those, most DMs in my area banned assassins. I
was one who didn't exactly, but I banned evil characters, so you could
technically play one if you started higher than level 1 and had changed
your alignment in your background.
>
The asshole PVPers were mostly theives, or multiclass with theives and
or magic-users.

We never banned assassins outright. But it was discouraged. The class
itself was poorly balanced anyway, and its mechanics didn't really fit
well with the rest of the game. Their exclusion from 2nd Edition was
very welcome. You could still be an assassin if you wanted; you just
didn't get any special class for it.

Thieves were also a favorite of bad players. "I'm a Thief, therefore I
/have/ to steal from the other PCs!". For that reason alone, the
renaming of the class in 2E to Rogue was another welcome change.

A lot of 1E seemed to be designed so players could be purposefully
antagonistic towards one another. It was annoying.

I also had a rule of no PVP after I quickly got tired of that.  If some
character was particularly bad and acting evil anyway, causing trouble
for the party in other ways, I'd lift it.  That only happened a couple
times and the offending character was quickly dealt with by *all* the
rest of the party, and the player never returned.

The worst part of the PVP was it was so... stupid. Look, if your
character has a grudge against another, and needs to kill him... I get
it. But make it part of the story.  A lot of it was just, "I backstab
the Mage for the lulz!" sort of stuff.

Those early years of playing D&D... I don't want to say I don't have
fond memories of those days, because I do. D&D was a magical game, and
even with all the issues, it was a great experience. But my real
fondness for the game came after I found a stable group of friends
with whom to play, and whose style of playing was more in tune with
what I myself enjoyed. People whose characters worked together, who
enjoyed roleplaying and story, and if there was conflict, worked it
out in the game that was generally enjoyable to everyone.