Why No Dwarven Bards?

At first glance, the Second Edition's limiting bards to humans and half-elves makes no sense. Why can't I play a Dwarven bard? Or how about an Elven bard? That should make sense.

But when I think about it, the abilities described in the human and half-elf bard do not make sense for Elves and Dwarves. With a Dwarven bard, I would want new powers, like ones useful in drinking games, telling bawdy jokes, throwing axes or darts, brawling skills, and weaving epic tales by the fireplace. They would not have any magic and could be a blend of thief and fighter. I call this new class a songsmith and create a new class for this tradition.

Similarly, an Elven bard may never touch arcane magic and instead pull from druidic spell lists and be a half-thief, half-druid. The answer to this problem lies not in "letting everybody be anything," but in recognizing that the classes represent long-standing traditions within those races that are part of their culture and heritage. For these bards, I would create a class called a lyricist and fold in the traditions of the Elven life, nature, and their history and lore.

The songsmith and lyricist are superior choices to the Dwarven and Elven generic bards. This also preserves the current bards as Human and Half-Elven traditions, further strengthening them as "their own thing."

The same thing goes for every race and class you would want to add to the core system. The Dark Elves may have an entirely different set of classes that only they can become. This is a problem you can't "cheaply solve" by allowing everyone to be everything. While there may be some backgrounds that are universal to Dark Elves and everyone else, such as fighters and priests, there are likely a bunch more that are better suited to their own class designs.

Dark Elven ranger? No, how about a spelunker? A spider tamer? An inquisitor? We don't have bards down here; we have fate weavers. And each one of these classes is unique, with special abilities and spell lists, and not just a renamed version of other classes.

If you stop, consider the culture, think, and come up with unique and fun designs that fit the race and roles in their society, you will always get better designs and a superior experience.

D&D 3E (and 3.5E) went a long way towards destroying the traditional notion of fantasy classes being a part of heritage and culture. They took the cheap way out of letting anyone be anything, just giving up on worldbuilding and crafting a setting through the rules, inviting in 101 fantasy character races that are just marshmallow shapes.

D&D 3.5E marked the beginning of D&D's decline. It is still the best we ever got from Wizards, but the design decisions that "opened the door" for anyone to be anything started to homogenize and gentrify the game, ruining it. The Second Edition preserves the worldbuilding inherent in the system and still retains a part of the "race as class" aspects of BX through level limits.

Wizards did this since the bard class went from one page of rules to four. All of a sudden, creating a new class for every tradition was out of the question because the game would blow up in size. So they made their bards "one size fits all" to increase class complexity. What was once a rogue subclass that shared features with rogues became a huge monolithic class that had to do everything for everyone.

In fact, the Wizards' design theory is inferior to the original second edition design. It is a fast-food bard character class that has to serve everyone and everything.

If anyone can be anything, everything will be bland and flavorless. You will have no worldbuilding. Your fantasy game will go from feeling like a unique time and place to a freeway where everyone rushes to get where they want to go. Dwarven wizard? Why not? All of a sudden, Dwarves aren't suspicious of arcane magic. Halflings can be barbarians. Drow can be paladins. Let's give up on worldbuilding, shall we?

There was an unspoken rule that races had their own class choices. The base books were the "human starting guide" by default, and you could expand from there.

Part of the original D&D mythos was its inherent worldbuilding.

D&D 3.0, and later revisions, came along and wiped all that out.

ACKS gets this and ships with so many great racial character classes that give each character race flavorful options and classes that fit within their culture. This game understands that the class and race options presented are worldbuilding, and it is one of the best at creating a coherent, logical, and strongly themed setting where your imagination can run wild.

Another game that does a fantastic job of creating a setting through its race, background, class, and skill options is Rolemaster. The game creates powerful combinations through its interlocking systems, allowing you to build great combinations or other ones that will be more of a challenge to play. There is worldbuilding here, stating that different races and backgrounds have deeper roots in various traditions and pursuits, and that these will synergize strongly with each other.

I have a soft spot for the original First Edition rules, and this lives on through Adventures Dark & Deep.

However, the Second Edition rules are those of the 1990s —the classic TSR fantasy novels and all the great paperbacks that came out during that time. This is the origin of all the modern character classes, roles, and options. We do not even have Half-Orcs as a race option in For Gold & Glory. We just have the classics, and the classics define the world we play in.

For Gold & Glory is the heir to the legacy of Second Edition AD&D.

The worldbuilding and spirit of that game live on here.