Eliminating Darkvision

iirc if there is light it hinders the DV so if they are at a campsite then their dv is essentially moot unless they are 100% not looking at the light or the fires out

As others have mentioned, it seems to me that if you need to take away racial abilities that are clearly stated and well-established in the game system in order to make your concept work as you want it to, you've chosen the wrong system for your game. I'd suggest picking a system that gives you the flexibility you want and doesn't require you to nerf the abilities your players are expecting to have.

Moonbeam says:

As others have mentioned, it seems to me that if you need to take away racial abilities that are clearly stated and well-established in the game system in order to make your concept work as you want it to, you've chosen the wrong system for your game. I'd suggest picking a system that gives you the flexibility you want and doesn't require you to nerf the abilities your players are expecting to have.

I don't really agree with that per se. D&D 5e is pretty flexible, and I'm finding that it can adapt to almost any setting.

SJoyner72 says:

I don't really agree with that per se. D&D 5e is pretty flexible, and I'm finding that it can adapt to almost any setting.

Perhaps so, but that's not the topic at hand. The OP is stating that to achieve a certain atmosphere he wants, he has to take away attributes associated with certain races. I'm saying that if you can't make the system do what you need it to do without nerfing characteristics of certain races, the racial traits aren't the real problem - the choice of system is.

i mean sacking dv and just saying that 'X' plague happened (i.e. spell plague) All/most races don't have DV anymore.

But I also agree there may be a different system out there that allows for that flexibility

Of course, you can say "this happened and now there's no darkvision," the same as you can say, "this happened, and now all red-haired people are psychic." The point is, when I make a character in D&D 5e, I expect the racial traits to apply. I often take the traits into consideration when deciding what race to play. So I would be miffed to have the DM say, "BTW, there's no darkvision" if I was making a character whose race has darkvision RAW.

GMs should probably decide on their campaign objectives before choosing a system, and be flexible enough to choose the right one if the original choice proves inadequate.

Moonbeam says:

SJoyner72 says:

I don't really agree with that per se. D&D 5e is pretty flexible, and I'm finding that it can adapt to almost any setting.

Perhaps so, but that's not the topic at hand. The OP is stating that to achieve a certain atmosphere he wants, he has to take away attributes associated with certain races. I'm saying that if you can't make the system do what you need it to do without nerfing characteristics of certain races, the racial traits aren't the real problem - the choice of system is.

I don't think I agree. It's well within the DMs purview to cut certain things out. As long as it's known beforehand, I see no issue. The time when you should choose a new system is when you have to alter pretty much everything. If it's just a couple little things, there's no need to change the system.

Also, it's not worth learning a whole new system just because you want to add a bit of scary atmosphere to the game and remove DV. If you want to go full horror, then probably learn a new one though.

CaveJohnson says:

iirc if there is light it hinders the DV so if they are at a campsite then their dv is essentially moot unless they are 100% not looking at the light or the fires out

You're thinking of earlier systems. In AD&D, there was Infravision and Ultravision. One or both could be thrown off by a heat and/or light source.

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Moonbeam says:

Of course, you can say "this happened and now there's no darkvision," the same as you can say, "this happened, and now all red-haired people are psychic." The point is, when I make a character in D&D 5e, I expect the racial traits to apply. I often take the traits into consideration when deciding what race to play. So I would be miffed to have the DM say, "BTW, there's no darkvision" if I was making a character whose race has darkvision RAW.

GMs should probably decide on their campaign objectives before choosing a system, and be flexible enough to choose the right one if the original choice proves inadequate.

I've found 5e to be incredibly flexible and customizable. And even if that weren't the case, I don't have the time, money, or inclination to learn or buy a new system (or force my players to do the same). I'm not talking about an entire revamp of the rules here, just one small aspect of it. Saying only a select few races have Darkvision is hardly gamebreaking, nor is it outside 5e's ability to accommodate. If 5e can be adapted to play Star Wars, it can certainly be adapted to a more limited Darkvision!

As for the expectations of players when they create a character, I can only speak for myself. After creating dozens of characters over the last four and a half years of playing 5e, I have never once considered Darkvision to be a make or break characteristic in choosing a race. The only scenario where I think it might be a problem is if the party consists entirely of races with Darkvision. It's quite likely that in that situation, the players probably chose this on purpose and would have a quite reasonable expectation that the DM wouldn't take that away from them. But I've never played in or DMed a game where there wasn't at least one character who needed a light source, thus negating most strategic advantages to Darkvision.

And if a player truly balked at the elimination (or the limiting/downgrading) of Darkvision, I would probably try to come to some sort of agreement with them. Perhaps offering an extra skill, as another commenter suggested. And if they still balked at this, or any other house rule I feel will ultimately add to the overall enjoyment of the game? I'm not a particularly overbearing or harsh DM (I think I'm a bit of a pushover, really), but I would have to politely suggest that if they can't follow the DM's rulings (after a civilized discussion/debate), they might find another group more suitable to their style of play. Luckily, my Monday night group consists of big boys and girls who seem to trust my judgment. Most of them are middle-aged farts like myself who don't hold these things too terribly precious and who will most likely shrug and say, "Let's give it a try!"

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who has responded to this thread. There are a lot of good suggestions/concerns/analyses to mull over. I plan to bring it up to my group on Monday to see what everyone thinks about the idea.

Naatkinson says:

I don't think I agree. It's well within the DMs purview to cut certain things out. As long as it's known beforehand, I see no issue. The time when you should choose a new system is when you have to alter pretty much everything. If it's just a couple little things, there's no need to change the system.

Agreed! (See my comment above.) I'm far from the type of DM to make up arbitrary rules or to purposely limit a player. But that's certainly my prerogative as DM. I'm not suggesting a "love it or leave it" attitude, but if players don't like the way I run things, I probably would find myself at a very lonely table.

Naatkinson says:

Also, it's not worth learning a whole new system just because you want to add a bit of scary atmosphere to the game and remove DV. If you want to go full horror, then probably learn a new one though.

Again, agreed! If my intention were to go full-on horror, I would probably look into another system. But I just want to be able to inject a little mood lighting, so to speak.

optimumsquare says:

I would advise against removing darkvision because inevitably, the PC's are going to feel like your cheating them, and they have a point. Darkvision is kind of baked into the balance of the game. If you're going to take away darkvision from dwarfs, what are you going to give the player who picked a dwarf in return?

We shall give the Dwarven player nothing except the extra stat boost, as well as a bunch of free goodies like Dwarven Resilience, Dwarven Combat Training, Tool Proficiency, and Stonecunning that he already was getting on top of the Darkvision.

I'm generally all for tailoring your system to your desired gameplay experience, but if you want to play D&D where the party doesn't have some members with built-in nightvision goggles and some without, throwing D&D entirely in the trash bin is a pretty extreme response.

Altering how Darkvision works (or taking it out entirely, or replacing it with some other feature) isn't some foundation-rocking, character-concept-exploding mechanical tweak that fundamentally alters the way the game is played. It's a relatively minor tweak that can have a real impact on the tools at the DM's disposal, both tactically and atmospherically.

There is another option. Just restrict the races to those without darkvision. As much as I love dwarves, I don't see why a campaign without them shouldn't be fun.

Aspiroth says:

There is another option. Just restrict the races to those without darkvision. As much as I love dwarves, I don't see why a campaign without them shouldn't be fun.

Unfortunately it seems that the majority of races have darkvision 🤷‍♂️

Either way, Len ran a game where there were no caster PCs and it was all human (I believe) and it was super amazing. Favorite game to date, I think!

It's important to be flexible though.

Remember, this is supposed to be fun. If dark vision is causing a problem in your game, you can change the rules at any time.

When all else fails, there is magic. A magical mist is obscuring your vision...