History Fridge / DungeonsandDragons

* Dungeon Master claimed to be their ''guide,'' he never claimed to be their ''friend.'' As any tabletop gamer knows, the dungeonmaster is operating entirely for their own benefit, not the players'.

* A bit of ForgottenRealms fluff related fridge brilliance; a lot of people complained about them [[KilledOffForReal killing Mystra]] in 4e, after it had been established that Mystra is needed for magic to function. A lot of people also mentioned that Mystra had died more than once before, and asked what made this time so special. But there were two constants for when Mystra died; 1: magic started going completely haywire, and 2: someone stepped up and became a new Mystra before things got out of hand. What makes this time different is that the second one didn't happen. No one took over, so magic just went out of control. But where as everyone had expected a complete collapse, instead you got the spellplague. Even better: magic ''did'' completely collapse. The Realms has always been an extremely high-magic world, with a wide array of spellcasters, uses for magic, and a lot of high-power spellcasters. The Weave itself is designed to be an interface, because mortals cannot safely access raw magic without burning their brains out. When Mystra died and the Weave collapsed, it led to the ''rest'' of the magic in Realmspace also collapsing. What spellcasters use for magic now is merely remnants, fragments of the former power that magic held. And this also fits in perfectly with how powerful magic had been as compared to how powerful magic is now.

%% This isn't Troper Tales or a forum. Refrain from first person entries, speculation, and "replying" to entries. RepairDontRespond is in effect here as much as any other page.

** Planescape explicitly spelled it out with the Slaadi Lords: they've artificially locked the Slaadi into specific forms because they know that if the Sladdi were left to true randomness and chaos, they'd eventually produce Sladdi more powerful than the Sladdi Lords.

** There's often the question of why worship an evil god when their afterlife is so horrible. Really, it isn't. Sure, there's endless torture and pain, but there's also debauchery to contrast to that- unlike good aligned afterlives where there's only pleasure, there's no contrast, and pain and pleasure are meaningless without the contrast. More over, evil afterlifes such as the Nine Hells present souls condemned their with constant mental challenges, the opportunity to match wits and will against devils, the most cunning and clever outsiders in the universe. For the intellectually inclined, such an opportunity would be a remarkably stimulating and rewarding experience on it's own, but the end result is the possibility of climbing the diabolic ladder and becoming a more powerful devil- an opportunity for advancement not present in most good aligned afterlives, where you're expected to sit in contentment for eternity. It's not a bad prospect for most, but for the evil or the ambitious, it would seem profoundly boring.
** While the gods have alignment-based portfolios in D&D, they also have specific professions, interests and so on. The afterlife of Vecna, for instance, probably involves more time spent in the library looking over the spell-books than torture or whatever. The mortals are tools for the gods, why would they waste time on them instead of using them just because they're dead? Especially since you only let in the devout followers.

** It seems like a DM really interested in doing worshippers of evil religions justice could hit it from a lot of angles, even in the same game varying from individual to individual. In 4e it was implied that worshippers were few for evil Gods but mostly those blinded by ambition who believed they'd have a good rank in the afterlife (some might be twisted and mad cultists, others cultured hedonists), other petitioners might be the souls who worshipped (or paid lipservice) to the Good Gods but were barred for being too evil (which ''would'' give the card-carrying evil-worshippers a significant rank-and-file to lord over). Another moralistic interpretation might be that these evil souls actively "worshipped" the Evil Gods through their actions even if they paid empty lip service to good. Similarly, there's a lot of Gods like Gruumsh who, while Evil, are also amongst the only divine representatives for their race and someone they could appeal to for protection. Even Neutral members of largely Good races might pay some lip-service to Evil gods in the same way some traditional religions might make sacrifices or hold services for evil gods; to avert their ire in times of crisis. To really do justice to the question, one would have to set the game in Planescape and show the legal/bureaucratic nightmare that would be getting souls into the right afterlife and God(dess) when the two might be incompatible.

** I always picked up on the fact that he said "Venger is the force of evil in this realm. I am Dungeon Master, (and instead of "the force of good" you would expect following the previous line, he just says...) Your Guide".

** It seems like a DM really interested in doing worshippers of evil religions justice could hit it from a lot of angles, even in the same game varying from individual to individual. In 4e it was implied that worshippers were few for evil Gods but mostly those blinded by ambition who believed they'd have a good rank in the afterlife (some might be twisted and mad cultists, others cultured hedonists), other petitioners might be the souls who worshipped (or paid lipservice) to the Good Gods but were barred for being too evil (which /would/ give the card-carrying evil-worshippers a significant rank-and-file to lord over). Another moralistic interpretation might be that these evil souls actively "worshipped" the Evil Gods through their actions even if they paid empty lip service to good. Similarly, there's a lot of Gods like Gruumsh who, while Evil, are also amongst the only divine representatives for their race and someone they could appeal to for protection. Even Neutral members of largely Good races might pay some lip-service to Evil gods in the same way some traditional religions might make sacrifices or hold services for evil gods; to avert their ire in times of crisis. To really do justice to the question, one would have to set the game in Planescape and show the legal/bureaucratic nightmare that would be getting souls into the right afterlife and God(dess) when the two might be incompatible.

* Diana reveals in "Child of the Stargazer" that her father is an astronomer. That probably explains how she ended up named after the Roman goddess of the moon.

[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]

** It seems like a DM really interested in doing worshippers of evil religions justice could hit it from a lot of angles, even in the same game varying from individual to individual. In 4e it was implied that worshippers were few for evil Gods but mostly those blinded by ambition who believed they'd have a good rank in the afterlife (some might be twisted and mad cultists, others cultured hedonists), other petitioners might be the souls who worshipped (or paid lipservice) to the Good Gods but were barred for being too evil (which /would/ give the card-carrying evil-worshippers a significant rank-and-file to lord over). Another moralistic interpretation might be that these evil souls actively "worshipped" the Evil Gods through their actions even if they paid empty lip service to good. Similarly, there's a lot of Gods like Gruumsh who, while Evil, are also amongst the only divine representatives for their race and someone they could appeal to for protection. Even Neutral members of largely Good races might pay some lip-service to Evil gods in the same way some traditional religions might make sacrifices or hold services for evil gods; to avert their ire in times of crisis. To really do justice to the question, one would have to set the game in Planescape and show the legal/bureaucratic nightmare that would be getting souls into the right afterlife and God(dess) when the two might be incompatible,
* Animated series: The players have classes that don't match their personalities, don't use their powers effectively, have trouble picking up on the dungeon master's sand keep arguing all the time. That's exactly like a real game.

* This troper was up in arms after seeing the announcement for ''DungeonsAndDragons'' 4th edition. But after I came to consider that I hadn't played ''D&D'' for nearly a year by that point, and hadn't [=DMed=] in about two, thanks to my growing frustration with creating adventures past 13th level, that my opinion shifted to more "wait and see." And then I picked up the preview books describing changes to the assumptions of the setting, which kicked off a great storm of world revamping and creative growth, and ''then'' got a chance to play with the quick-start rules and found it so much easier to use that my opinion did a complete 180. -- TheStray
** I was also rather concerned about a lot of the changes, and then I played some and discovered that the new Fighter rules and special abilities make me into the ultimate tank with much more ease than before. -- {{Crazael}}
*** Nobody ever doubted that -- HydroGlobus
** I originally thought the Primordials in the new generic campaign setting were a cheesy ''{{Exalted}}'' ripoff. Then I started thinking of them as more like the Giants of NorseMythology, powerful and chaotic elemental beings that are in opposition to the gods. They suddenly became much cooler, as I am a bit of a Norse mythology fan. -- {{Peteman}}
*** The dragonborn seemed like a cheesy, "here, you can play a dragon character" addition to the game, until our group started exploring the potential backgrounds in each of the races. With bonuses to Charisma, History checks, and a background involving a long-lost empire, the dragonborn sound less tossed-in, and a lot more like a race inspired by Persian/Arabic backgrounds, and even nods to Islam and Zoroastrianism. With that, my view of the dragonborn turned from "Why did we need this?" to "There is but one god, and Bahamut is his prophet." -- {{Delcan}}
**** And now I need to clean off my screen - and thank Delcan for giving me something new to play with in AD&D...
**** Reading this FridgeBrilliance entry inspired me to realize WHY they changed the death and dying rules the way they did. (Aside from RuleOfFun). ''D&D'' became more popular and more "mainstream" over the years. Therefore, trends in gaming changed from the "Let's simulate an adventure." to a "Let's be the perfect action hero who recovers and prevails during fights!", so ''D&D'' changed to suit the new audiences demands. Pity that's what annoys me so much. -- {{Hariman}}

*** This troper's particular original point of contention was that 4E seems to be trying to enforce a 'level cap', {{MMORPG}} style, as if to discourage epic-level play. But later, I realised that pretty much everyone will admit that at epic levels in previous editions of D&D (and many other games), balance is an absolute joke in so many ways, combat takes forever to resolve, and gameplay itself becomes absolutely ridiculous. They're trying to encourage players to take their time levelling, or even be more willing to retire characters that become powerful enough and roll new ones. It's not something you have to agree with or like by any means (most of my friends don't like the idea) but they did that for a reason. -SabreJustice.
** This pales in comparison to the other examples here, but the 4th ed. Monster Manual 2 has a foe called the Human Gladiator. His Well-Placed Kick [[ShareTheMalePain dazes and slows its target.]]
* A bit of ForgottenRealms fluff related fridge brilliance; a lot of people complained about them [[KilledOffForReal killing Mystra]] in 4e, after it had been established that Mystra is needed for magic to function. A lot of people also mentioned that Mystra had died more than once before, and asked what made this time so special. It occured to me that there were two constants for when Mystra died; 1: magic started going completely haywire, and 2: someone stepped up and became a new Mystra before things got out of hand. What makes this time different is that the second one didn't happen. No one took over, so magic just went out of control. But where as everyone had expected a complete collapse, instead you got the spellplague.
** Even better: magic ''did'' completely collapse. The Realms has always been an extremely high-magic world, with a wide array of spellcasters, uses for magic, and a lot of high-power spellcasters. The Weave itself is designed to be an interface, because mortals cannot safely access raw magic without burning their brains out. When Mystra died and the Weave collapsed, it led to the ''rest'' of the magic in Realmspace also collapsing. What spellcasters use for magic now is merely remnants, fragments of the former power that magic held. And this also fits in perfectly with how powerful magic had been as compared to how powerful magic is now.
* I figured for a bit that the bard would forever be made of weak sauce when it occured to me everyone thinks bards are terrible so when it comes to attack I'm low priority.-Doomboy911
* In TableTopGame/{{Pathfinder}} I was wondering how a bard could cast spells while maintaining bardic performance. Then I looked over the bard class's description closer and relaised that they made it so all bard spells have verbalk components and these components depend on perform.
* I was wondering why bards would have the ability to create illusions and temporarily summon monsters just by singing and why they're not just called wizards/sorcerers, but then I realized: modern special FX haven't been invented yet! Of course the most successful actors/playwrights would be the illusionists/summoners!
* Tabletop-related, I didn't know why one of fast usage options for Hamete's dice server was [=4D6-L=] until I learned how to make a D&D character.
* A lot of people think it's silly that the slaadi, the embodiments of ChaoticNeutral in the same way demons personify ChaoticEvil, look like humanoid frogs. The usual response is that, if they embody pure chaos, they could look like anything, so why ''shouldn't'' they look like frogs? But after some research I found that in Egyptian mythology, the chaos before creation was inhabited by primal gods, some of whom looked like, you guessed it, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad frogs]]. For bonus points, ''TableTopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' wasn't able to use slaadi due to copyright reasons, so their role of ChaoticNeutral exemplars was filled with the proteans, who, like some other primal Egyptian gods, look like snakes. --Tropers/{{Filby}}

* There's often the question of why worship an evil god when their afterlife is so horrible. Really, it isn't. Sure, there's endless torture and pain, but there's also debauchery to contrast to that- unlike good aligned afterlifes where there's only pleasure, there's no contrast, and pain and pleasure are meaningless without the contrast. More over, evil afterlifes such as the Nine Hells present souls condemned their with constant mental challenges, the opportunity to match wits and will against devils, the most cunning and clever outsiders in the universe. For the intellectually inclined, such an opportunity would be a remarkably stimulating and rewarding experience on it's own, but the end result is the possibility of climbing the diabolic ladder and becoming a more powerful devil- an opportunity for advancement not present in most good aligned afterlifes, where you're expected to sit in contentment for eternity. It's not a bad prospect for most, but for the evil or the ambitious, it would seem profoundly boring.
** While the gods have alignment-based portfolios in D&D, they also have specific professions, interests and so on. The afterlife of Vecna, for instance, probably involves more time spent in the library looking over the spell-books than torture or whatever. The mortals are tools for the gods, why would they waste time on them instead of using them just because they're dead. Especially since you only let in the devout followers.

* About the animated series which is frequently accused of not reflecting the source material: the players have classes that don't match their personalities, don't use their powers effectively, have trouble picking up on the dungeon master's clue and keep arguing all the time. ''How is this not like a REAL dungeons and dragons game?''

* In pathfinder I was wondering how a bard could cast spells while maintaining bardic performance. Then I looked over the bard class's description closer and relaised that they made it so all bard spells have verbalk components and these components depend on perform.

* A lot of people think it's silly that the slaadi, the embodiments of ChaoticNeutral in the same way demons personify ChaoticEvil, look like humanoid frogs. The usual response is that, if they embody pure chaos, they could look like anything, so why ''shouldn't'' they look like frogs? But after some research I found that in Egyptian mythology, the chaos before creation was inhabited by primal gods, some of whom looked like, you guessed it, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad frogs]]. For bonus points, ''{{Pathfinder}}'' wasn't able to use slaadi due to copyright reasons, so their role of ChaoticNeutral exemplars was filled with the proteans, who, like some other primal Egyptian gods, look like snakes. --Tropers/{{Filby}}

* There's often the question of why worship an evil god when their afterlife is so horrible. Really, it isn't. Sure, there's endless torture and pain, but there's also debauchery to contrast to that- unlike good aligned afterlifes where there's only pleasure, there's no contrast, and pain and pleasure are meaningless without the contrast. More over, evil afterlifes such as the Nine Hells present souls condemned their with constant mental challenges, the opportunity to match wits and will against devils, the most cunning and clever outsiders in the universe. For the intellectually inclined, such an opportunity would be a remarkably stimulating and rewarding experience on it's own, but the end result is the possibility of climbing the diabolic ladder and becoming a more powerful devil- an opportunity for advancement not present in most good aligned afterlifes, where you're expected to sit in contentment for eternity. It's not a bad prospect for most, but for the evil or the ambitious, it would seem profoundly boring.

** Moreover, how many real-world animals can the average person think of that represent Chaos's transformative aspects better than the frog? In its life cycle, it changes from water-breather to air-breather, herbivore to carnivore, finned to legged. Not even butterflies alter ''that'' many aspects of their way of life, in shifting from juvenile to adult; only parasitic worms transform as drastically, and slaadi emulate ''them'' in their breeding methods, too.

***** I'd say that the reason is closer to "dying and creating a new character every session cuts down on the roleplay and makes fighting the only thing worth concentrating on." Why bother with real roleplaying if the personality you so painstakingly created, and the in-character friendships and contacts you've worked so hard to form, could be taken away at any second? Also, death is no longer a certainty in 4.0, as fate plays a part in whether a resurrection even works. This means that death has more impact and balance; it's more nebulous. There's no longer a sort of "resurrection hump" to cross, before which you're basically screwed and after which death is a mere annoyance. You should give 4.0 a fair chance; despite being flawed, it circumvents a lot of things in 3.5 that were plain nonsense. --Wynne
***** That just plays right into the "dumbing it down" argument. If you're smart about how you build and play your characters, you won't die very often in anything outside of the TombOfHorrors. On the other hand, you would have to be downright retarded to lose a character in 4th ed. Now a valid argument would be that 4th ed lets you get back in the fight faster. If that's what you want, 4th ed really is the better game. -- {{gibberingtroper}}

** Moreover, how many real-world animals can the average person think of that represent Chaos's transformative aspects better than the frog? In its life cycle, it changes from water-breather to air-breather, herbivore to carnivore, finned to legged. Not even butterflies alter ''that'' many aspects of their way of life, in shifting from juvenile to adult; only parasitic worms transform as drastically, and slaadi emulate ''them'' in their breeding methods, too.

** Moreover, how many real-world animals can you think of that represent Chaos's transformative aspects than the frog? In its life cycle, it changes from water-breather to air-breather, herbivore to carnivore, finned to legged. Not even butterflies alter ''that'' many aspects of their way of life.

**** And now I need to clean off my screen - and thank Delcan for giving me something new to play with in AD&D... -- {{Valandar}}

* A lot of people think it's silly that the slaadi, the embodiments of ChaoticNeutral in the same way demons personify ChaoticEvil, look like humanoid frogs. The usual response is that, if they embody pure chaos, they could look like anything, so why ''shouldn't'' they look like frogs? But after some research I found that in Egyptian mythology, the chaos before creation was inhabited by primal gods, some of whom looked like, you guessed it, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad frogs]]. For bonus points, ''{{Pathfinder}}'' wasn't able to use slaadi due to copyright reasons, so their role of ChaoticNeutral exemplars was filled with the proteans, who, like some other primal Egyptian gods, look like snakes. --{{Filby}}