More Like Grump Gazebo
So the other day my husband was bitching about the new races that are coming out in the Heroes of the Feywild book. He was going on about how “back in the day” there were only a few races and nowadays there are all kinds of different creatures you can be. I find this funny coming from a guy who wasn’t really around “back in the day” as far as D&D goes.
But my question to him was “and that’s a bad thing?” He kept going on about how ridiculous it is that you’ll be able to be a centaur and complaining about “more tree people”. Then he proceeds with “Who the hell wants to be a fairy anyway?” Who wants to be a fairy? Seriously? I DO! Fairies are amazing creatures that have fascinated me since I was a little girl. Now I will be able to play one?! Really the question should be ‘Who wouldn’t want to be a fairy?’ They’re beautiful, mystical, sometimes sparkly and have amazingly beautiful wings which they can use to fly. Yeah, they can fly. Who doesn’t want to fly?
I See How It Is
When my husband first heard about the last book Heroes of Shadow, he was super excited. There was no complaining about WotC adding more races or classes when he found out that he could be a vampire or a necromancer. He was ecstatic when he found out about this book filled with dark and gloomy stuff, however now that a book is coming out that he has absolutely no interest in, he’s complaining about WotC putting “silly” additions to the game. I think it’s great that Wizards keeps adding new races, classes, and abilities. New content keeps things fresh and ever-evolving, I think if you don’t do that games kind of stagnate. I also think it’s silly to complain about something before it is even out, especially just because it doesn’t specifically interest you. I think there are a lot of people interested in all things fey like myself that can’t wait for this book to come out!
[color_box title=”Sidenote: Dryad Love & Elven Hate” variation=”hot_pink”]As an aside, there is also a Dryad race, how awesome is that?! I love nature and all that it entails but I hate elves. The thought of playing one makes me nauseous. Their pointy ears kinda creep me out and every time I think of them images of my husband’s night elf from WoW flash through my head – dirty hair and stupid floppy ears, yuck. There are however, two elves that I’m a fan of: Legolas, because he’s so dreamy and of course Jander Sunstar, because I kind of just want to give him a hug.[/color_box]
Mermaids, Because I Said So
As far as consistently adding new content goes, I really hope they come out with a mermaid eventually. I’ve always really wanted to be a mermaid. Literally, be a mermaid in real life – a girl can dream right? I was kinda’ surprised that they haven’t even published a mermaid or merfolk monsters yet and that there aren’t very many (if any) water-based adventures published for 4e. Maybe its because people aren’t that fond of them?
I can’t wait to roll up a fairy as soon as this new book comes out! Maybe I’ll finally get to play a druid or another cool nature base class, since I was robbed of that in our most recent campaign and now everyone wants to change their damn characters…that’s a blog post for another day though.
Patiently Waiting for Wings
My husband is usually the one that is excited about the latest greatest upcoming D&D products on the horizon but this time I’m super pumped! I’m also really excited about this book because Steve Townshend is one of the writers on this book! I met Steve at DDXP earlier this year and got to play D&D with him (which was a blast). We also had lunch and hung out a bit at Origins, he’s a really nice guy and a great writer. And so, I anxiously await the release of Heroes of the Feywild! Until then I’ll be planning my new fairy character in my head, what’s a good fairy name? Hmmm…..
Clap your hands if you believe in player choice!
I’m always (privately) complaining about how the fey are under-used as adversaries. The existence of HotF gives me hope that there may be more official Fey content coming out soon.
Same thing was said (and is still said) about Dragonborn, but I’ve seen enough kids (and some adults, for that matter) light up at the prospect of playing a dragon to have sold itself to me.
I see Heroes of Shadow and Heroes of the Feywild (and the upcoming Elemental one) as being campaign-specific sourcebooks. Not every campaign will want to use them, but I like them out there as options.
But I also liked The Complete Book of Humanoids (2e) and Savage Species (3e) so I’m predisposed.
Complete Book of Humanoids FTW!!!
I think they make great books for certain settings and great books for kinda-generic ones too, I like the player option series a lot actually. Also, Dragonborn are great – I have a feeling my daughter will want to play one in a few years 🙂
I really liked Savage Species in 3e. It was one thing that rekindled my interest in playing that system. I remember playing a centaur fighter WAY back in Basic D&D, in 1979. There weren’t any special rules for it. I just wrote down Centaur in the Race area of my character sheet, and we determined the differences on the fly…
“How hard IS it for a horse to climb down stairs, anyway?”
Heroes of the Feywild sounds pretty cool to me. I didn’t like the addition of the Vryloka in Heroes of Shadow, though. Not only am I just tired of vampires, as they have just been done to death (ha, see what I did there?), it came off as a little too “Twilight” for me. I wouldn’t go so far as to ban them from my game, but I probably won’t bother to play one.
Granted, I said that about Warforged awhile back, yet my warforged storm warden, Tesla, is one of my favorite characters these days. 🙂
Yeah! I like the idea of playing exotic races too, I never understand why people would choose to play humans and stuff because well…to me that’s kinda boring. I’m already a human!
As for the vampires, I don’t think they are too “Twilighty” at least not the way they were portrayed in 4e. I think they did a good job with them, reminded me a lot of the vampires I just got done reading about in Vampires of the Mist (Ravenloft novel), but I also happen to be a fan of Twilight (the books) so I could be biased here 🙂
I’m totally making a Pixie warden using the “Class Acts: Fey Wardens” article. The sole goal is maximum feyness. High-pitched voice, singing, dance, gags/tricks, all to be employed for much amusement at the table. Well, I’m pretty sure I’ll be amused. Regardless, it will be my next LFR PC as soon as the book hits the streets!
I’m right there with you looking forward to this book. I feel the way Jerry feels about the Feywild book, only about the Shadow book. Vampires? A whole race of them? Meh.
But seeing as how my homebrew campaign world is strongly influenced by old myths (and current movies) featuring the fey, I’m quite interested in this book. I actually wish it had come out a year earlier.
There are both pros and cons to adding new options, of course. More stuff does mean added confusion and time spent sorting through it all. But it also means that, for people like me (and Mr. Gazebo!) who want to focus on certain things, we can have official product to back us up in doing so. 🙂
Yes it’s definitely nice to have a whole book focused on one thing, the amount of options can be dizzying at times too but it’s not too, too bad. Feats though, ugh I hate picking feats there are *too* many options.
Exactly. Unless you have a very clear idea of what you want to do, there are just a crazy number of choices. It’s “bad” enough with powers and at least twice that with feats.
It’s funny, though, because I used to love leafing through AD&D books full of nothing but spells and magic items and thinking, “Look at all the cool stuff my character could do!” I wonder where the difference lies.
Draco: Correction, a whole CLASS of Vampires! 😀
No, both! I did mean a whole RACE of them, and was referring to Vryloka. 🙂
Laying off the ideas of pixies in general, I’m generally in favor of player choice and having a lot of options to choose from. If someone doesn’t like pixies, they don’t have to play them. Simple as that.
Yep. Exactly.
I admit to some reticence about the pixies, but honestly a pixie barbarian sounds totally badass. As someone who gravitates towards small sized characters, I’m already a fan 🙂
I’d guess the lack of merfolk is due to the complicated tactics when you add that fourth dimension to D&D. I love the idea of underwater cities, but I wouldn’t run underwater combat if I could help it, which dampens my enthusiasm.
That said, I look forward to hearing all about your pixie character _who can fly_ !
Me too! Thanks for stopping by and commenting Jenny! 🙂
Man, Jerry’s lucky you keep him around to explain to him about “good taste.”
😛
Hamadryads: a vain attempt to make you embrace Steve’s oh-so-highly-underrated nymph entry from MM3. I mean, it’s got friggin’ Howard Lyon art for chrisakes.
Reeeeaaaad it…. Reeeeeeaaaaad iiiiiitttt.
Yes he is! He knows he’s lucky though, so I let him slide most of the time 🙂
Haha, I’m super anxious to check this book out, I’ll definitely be reading all of it (and the MM3 Nymph). Thanks for taking time out to stop by and comment too Steve, that makes this blog post even more special!
Put me solidly in the “pro player choice,” camp. I’m looking forward to the book just to see what’s in it. Choice is good!
I loved Heroes of Shadow. I approve this book as well. About time they did more with the Feywild, really, and there’s nothing wrong with pixies. Or centaurs.
If I were going to pick something to complain about, it would be the Wilden – I felt weirder when those came out because I had this perception that they’d been invented out of whole cloth, and they just felt strange and alien (note: not always a bad thing). By contrast, the new “tree people,” sound downright refreshing.
My wife is super looking forward to faeries, too. When she made her first character, the first thing she said was “I want to be a wizard!”. The second was, “Can I be a fairy or an elf?”.
I am looking forward to the Feywild book a lot myself. I ran a Celtic game last year and had to house rule a lot of stuff; it looks like this book would help with that a lot. The dryad and satyr races would be great for a Greek themed campaign, too.
I do kind of understand the “too many options” line of thinking, though. I follow a lot of old-school gaming blogs and its amazing the constant new ideas people come up with for the old Basic D&D races and classes. So its funny to me that on the other end of the spectrum 4E has a huge and constantly expanding variety of options and people always want more.
I’m ok with limiting options for a particular campaign (for example, I’m thinking of another Celtic game using only Essentials and Heroes of Feywild), but I’m always open to ideas if a player really wants something. I like what Angry DM said recently about the DM having to keep control over their vision of the game world to stay invested, and a PC concept that’s out of that vision can be a problem. If I say no asian themed classes, I’ll say no to a monk PC. But if I can talk to the player and re-skin the concept into something else (a shield maiden sworn to never use a man’s weapon, maybe) then its fine.
I see both sides, because sometimes a want to limit options for a campaign, and sometimes I want to play something that the DM arbitrarily doesn’t like. Open communication about the setting and campaign style goes a long way.
I enjoyed running Dryad monsters in my campaign, so having that option as a player would be fun. I think the addition of races and classes is a good thing for the game. The benefits outweigh the consequences. It can create situations where the options are overwhelming, but that happens away from the gaming table (for the most part). And a DM and her or his players can agree ahead of time on what classes “fit” into any given campaign. I am in the process of adding new players and we’re in discussions now.
For instance, the player asked, “How do shifters fit into your world? Can I play one of those?” That works rather well since the party is immersed in a doppelganger plot. There are so many backstory and hook elements for the player and the party moving forward.
Plus, no DMs can decide to run the bulk of a campaign in the Feywild with specific races suited to that environment. The toolbox has become bigger without any of the other tools – like the Shadow classes – being replaced.
And I agree, aquatic classes would be a lot of fun!