Assignment: Creating a D&D Character • Hacker News Board

Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character

#61

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 12, 2015, 12:20 PM UTC

herbig wrote: post #17

smtucker wrote: post #4

>Next comes one of the worst and one of the best parts of D&D’s character system. D&D’s Race system is, frankly, kind of gross. The idea that a person’s race tells you something about their character is a sign of the racist elements in the fantasy tradition before and around D&D. ...Really? This type of thought coming from MIT makes me question my sanity.

Agreed. "Dwarves are good at building things not because of some essential genetic racial qualities, but because they are raised in a culture that values building and passes on a certain set of traditional practices around it." Dwarves (and Elves) can also see in the dark and can live for many hundreds of years. In many ways a character's race is a set of advantages derived from genetic qualities. This isn't race in…

[deleted]

Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character

#62

Post by ocdtrekkie » Thu, Mar 12, 2015, 1:35 PM UTC

cmaggard wrote: post #2

Providing a scanned copy of the most recent Player's Handbook probably isn't the best idea for something like this. Any of the System Reference Documents from the 3rd Edition era could stand in its place without many material changes.

Yeah, my first thought on this link was "copyright infringement?"

Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character

#63

Post by kephra » Thu, Mar 12, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #39

guyzero wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traveller's system had the odd effect of making the best characters (those with the most skills) also really old. It was odd as a teenager roleplaying a 48 year-old military veteran. My main thought was always "why am I out adventuring instead of just getting some rest?"

I always assumed that this is the far future and life spans are longer so 40 is relatively young

Yes, if you are wealthy and live on a high tech world. But Traveller Tech Level is defined as the maximum level an economy can sustain with a population of 10 ^ TL. So 10 people, even with books of knowledge will be at TL:1 bronce age within a few generations. 100 people at iron age and so on till Tl:8 is our current knowledge, its not 9 because most parts of population does is to poor and not yet educated to participate in the economy.

And Tl:9 of course offers the first future techs, e.g. fusion reactors. Tl:A reliable interstellar travel and automatic factories, and huge progress in the high times of big trade empires spanning years of FTL travel, and the collapse of civilization, technology and dark ages, when ever those empires fall.

Living at Tl:F and being wealthy could buy you a lot of years, before you need to worry about age. But I was restricting my idea of a "better" assignment to Tl:8. So you can imagine every career path here and now, e.g. odd ones you never want to live in real life like the doctor who works for crime syndicate (above example), but that is fun in a role playing game, or would make a good trope in a novel or film.