TNE and Centaurs

[shau]

As Frank has pointed out more times than I can count, "consistent setting" and "DMs can easily graft stuff on" are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE!

Would that it weren't true, but unfortunately, by the very definition of a consistent setting, adding new stuff -always- upsets things at least a little bit because the factors that added up one way without it has an entirely new variable in the mix.

Egads, with that much font manipulation it must be right.

More to the point, while it is true that making a change does change things, it does not mean it has to upset the internal logic of the setting in any significant way. The foreign traveler from the land we never heard about before trope is cliche but that does not mean it doesn't work. People will houserule new things in anyway, so preparing for that eventuality would seem to make the most sense.

Edit:

Since when did D&D become a toolkit game? Was it when it was its own genre gathered soo much bloat that the only way to handle it was for people to decide to call it a 'toolkit' just so their minds could handle the Rifts-level kitchen-sink? I wonder if it was ever truly designed with 'toolkit' as the goal.

I thought pretty much always. Since second edition DnD has offered the opportunity to be something from a number of different settings. It draws from Tolkien, other fantasy writers, Greek myth, Arabian tales such as Aladdin, Samurai stories, Kung fu, etc. Instead of offering a toolkit though they just release an ever increasing number of splatbooks.

[zeruslord]

There is a limit to just how generic a toolkit can get before collapsing into "pick an RNG, decide if you want classes, pick some attributes, name some skills, make some abilities, and make everything balanced." The fact is, the HERO System is a superhero game, and no amount of RP and relabeling is going to make the world that emerges from those rules anything but a superhero world. Frank's design methodology starts with a setting, and it will actually be balanced/playable only in that setting, because Warp Cult does not have a system that makes playing a Space Marine any fun at all. On the other hand, it is possible to design a game from the opposite end, but this runs the risk of having an emergent setting totally different from what some or even all of the designers intended (See the Socialonomicon, Economicon, etc.) We might be able to avoid this by creating a Sword & Sorcery toolkit, a High Fantasy toolkit, and a Gritty Low Fantasy toolkit, but these three toolkits will be inherently incompatible.

On the setting/system/game distinction: PhoneLobster is arguing from a toolkit view, and the rest of you are arguing from a prebuilt, setting and system, game view. It is possible to design a consistent setting by using pieces of a toolkit, but not to maintain a consistent and detailed setting when adding the rest of the toolkit into it. PhoneLobster is right about DMs being able to construct their own consistent setting by adding to the toolkit and taking what they want, but the rest of you aren't talking about that at all.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that if you add someone who uses a musket (assuming that's meaningfully different than a bow to begin with) into a game balanced based on spear, sword and bow, you have to figure out how to balance it with the other three choices and their advantages/tradeoffs

So by adding one new element, you force three things to be adjusted.

Its like building a house of cards.

And saying "but some will try to play with 100 cards we must set up the game so they can do that!" is missing the point.

Grafting on new stuff "from another realm" will mesh poorly with old, established, and consistent stuff.

I'm not happy about that, but I'm not sure to avoid it. And I am sure that anyone who wants to inflict that on the game does not deserve spending time and effort that we could spend balancing sword/spear/bow (or whatever) better, writting fluff, and otherwise making the setting we did intend to create work better.

Instead of offering a toolkit though they just release an ever increasing number of splatbooks.

Which do not mix with other things at all. "Oh, by the way, there's a Goddess of Winter now. Yeah, we thought that Obad-Hai being God of Nature, including all the seasons was a bad id...hey, ow, ow ow! Stop throwing dice at us!"

[zeruslord]

Games with muskets are a different genre and a different toolkit if muskets are meaningfully better than a bow.

otherwise making the setting we did intend to create work better.

The idea of making a specific setting is the precise opposite of PhoneLobster's goals. He wants a balanced set of rules that he can draw from to create his own setting that is different from yours, because nobody you play with plays with anybody he plays with, and if he feels like playing in a sword and sorcery world based on the Mongolian steppes and you want to play in a sword and sorcery world based on Africa, he wants those to run on the same underlying mechanics and even be able to share some races, monsters, magic items and classes. You, when you write the stystem, have already decided on an African-based setting and haven't even considered what a toolkit means.

[PhoneLobster]

I suspect his claim is that centaurs would break essentially any system, not that his system is so fragile that centaurs would break it. Ever so slight of a difference.

Well then the claim is all the more ridiculous isn't it?

Since when did D&D become a toolkit game?

Pretty much the second people started regarding it as anything other than a table top wargame/board game and introduced any kind of creative element.

ANY incidence of creativity or options in game play and campaign/story requires a toolkit approach at some level.

D&D has been presenting a wider array of options than can physically be used in a single campaign since at least 2nd edition, 3rd edition in particular built its success on its nature as a modular set of interacting and malleable options.

There are multiple published campaign settings and a system designed with plenty of options for the VAST numbers of people who produce their own campaign settings.

And that's before house ruling and home brew additions and all that junk.

Sure there were flaws, but the bit where it was a toolkit was a feature, indeed THE god damn feature.

[fbmf]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
While I applaud the OP's effort at even stating he wanted the thread to be kept civil, this thread is quickly degenerating. I should have cut it off four pages back or so.
[/TGFBS]