Considering that, according to this poll, 85.7% of people are okay with limitations….
I feel like most players have a whole bunch of character ideas to develop so it’s not a big deal when they can’t play a particular one. DM’s have a whole world to concern themselves with; players just make characters LOL
But that's world-building with some serious time constraints unless that DM is going to tell those players I'll get back to you in x weeks or x months compared to a DM having spent months if not even years researching and designing a fully developed setting.
This is a complete misunderstanding of how that style of DMing works - one which I doubt few, if any, actually do. Let’s try analogy, since clearly multiple people fundamentally are mischaracterising how a flexible DM designs their world.
A flexible DM is like a car factory. They will build the car, finish the engine, put on some wheels, and the car will be ready to drive off the factory floor and onto the road, and would be 100% functional as-is. That car factory receives a special order - “hey, I want the deluxe rims and a fun paint job.” The factory needs to slap on a new coat of paint and maybe substitute out a relatively minor part, but the car is still basically the same, with some pretty minor changes.
Those mostly cosmetic changes take pretty much no time at all - even with a day between character creation and the campaign start, it isn’t that hard just to change out the metaphorical rims.
It isn’t hard and it doesn’t break the world. Frankly, I suspect the “but it breaks the world” crowd are scapegoating species/class options because they don’t want to admit “the players that use species choices to troll were probably going to troll anyway, but I’d rather blame the mechanic than admit I rolled poorly on my insight for that player.”
I'll give you another analogy: The director says our theater company will be staging a series of original plays not unlike the Henriad and that these will be the most historically accurate productions of any play staged in the centuries since the time of Shakespeare and Marlowe in which this series of plays is to be set. What makes this project most interesting is that the cast will be given the liberty to not only come up with their roles but even submit the words and actions they will perform in them. One actor passes the audition and then protests because he or she can't play an astronaut.
You don't think the DM yielding and giving the actor what he or she wants would break that world?
Do you think the director is being inflexible unless he or she allows that actor to play an astronaut in the court of the "Virgin Queen"?
Stop acting like this is all about how bad a DM someone must be when some of us simply want to play games that bring to life at our tables literary or historical sources. Or worlds of our own imagination into which we have put a lot of time and effort to make them comparable to either.
I gave earlier the example of running a game set in warring states period Japan that is something I've personally run for Japanese students of mine the aim of which was to have fun but to do so with some degree of accuracy. A player then joining that group and launching into a tirade about how bad of a DM I must be because I said no you can't play a tiefling or a sorcerer is being a wanker. That's a player I would never want at my table even if the next game I was to be running was to allow for anything and everything.
I want to be very clear - as I have said on several posts, I think competent DMs can DM with restrictions. My experiences have been different, but I fully admit my experiences are my own and do not speak for everyone. I also have noted that I actually understand the other side—it just isn’t my cup of tea.
Otherwise, I think you clearly missed the point of my analogy - which was trying to help clear up what is very clearly a misunderstanding on your part. It was not an attack or an assertion that one is “bad DM” as you claim merely an explanation of how something you said could not compare to “months and years of planning”. Your statement was plainly wrong - you can have months and years of planning and unlimited character options, just as you can have months and years of planning a car and throw on some last minute, mostly cosmetic changes without fundamentally changing anything.
To answer your question related to your analogy, I think it was a poor choice of analogy that was non responsive to my “hey, let me help you understand something I think you are missing” post. I think you inadvertently provided evidence for my “perhaps a bad set of insight rolls prior to or surrounding session zero might be the real problem”, as your insight check led you to a defensive, tangential posture which inadvertently showed you might not understand how D&D’s collaborative, prompt-with-improve-based storytelling might differ from scripted storytelling.
Rather than dwell on that, I’ll chalk it up to a bad dice roll and wish you luck next time you toss them.
I got your point. Mine was about how just underdeveloped or video game-like the worlds people run at their tables must be if every single menu of character options is made available to players and these must be accommodated. But I'd invite you to provide us with an example of a setting of your own creation to show us how this matches even the vision of a world-builder like Tolkien, Lord Dunsany, Howard, or Leiber if you're so certain of your own abilities and want to just insult those of us who just do things differently.
I said nothing about scripted storytelling. I said those actors would come up with their own lines for that project. But you clearly don't understand that for many D&D isn't collaborative storytelling. The storytelling approach to the game is a relatively modern one compared to the one of exploration which has been with the game since the beginning. The storytellers want to be Matt Mercer and his crew. The explorers want to play in sandboxes like the best of campaign settings from days gone by or those from a DM's imagination. Perhaps ironically, I think the exploration approach makes for much better storytelling. Writing—good writing—is about the sensory landscape and the world such creates and presents to readers as much as it is about what the characters just say or do to tell the story. Good writers choose wisely to fill a world with sets and props and background characters that make sense to make the world seem as real to life as the one we live in no matter how imaginary it might be. It is comparably fan fiction to just let a player force a square into a circle.
Let’s look at this another way, you say it makes the game feel video like because choice isn’t limited.
Unlike a video game that player is potentially going to be playing that character for what 6 months, a year 3 years? Meeting up once a week to use them. Why as a DM would I not allow them the best chance of picking something they connected with and would make them less likely to drop out. Especially if they can only commit to 1 campaign. If I am any good as a DM and they have a truly amazing character concept then I can incorporate it into my world. Recently I had this. My world has no war forged in it. A player had a great concept for a warforged. Not the backstory but how they wanted to play it, he actually wanted to have no recollection of his creator letting me reveal it in time.
I didn’t want to break my rules about warforged in this world, they can’t be made, but, you have so many planes. The story I came up with, he was forged by a githzreai within limbo. One of 1000 created as mechanical gollums to help protect from the Githzerai or to act as an army that could never be mind controlled. But something went wrong and each of these constructs absorbed a blank soul gaining true life.
That piece of lore came out of me embracing a player choice, not shutting it down. It now opens up my world a little bit more and gives the opportunity to explore the planes, bring the gith war into my campaign in some way. All because I didn’t say no.
But that's world-building with some serious time constraints unless that DM is going to tell those players I'll get back to you in x weeks or x months compared to a DM having spent months if not even years researching and designing a fully developed setting.
This is a complete misunderstanding of how that style of DMing works - one which I doubt few, if any, actually do. Let’s try analogy, since clearly multiple people fundamentally are mischaracterising how a flexible DM designs their world.
A flexible DM is like a car factory. They will build the car, finish the engine, put on some wheels, and the car will be ready to drive off the factory floor and onto the road, and would be 100% functional as-is. That car factory receives a special order - “hey, I want the deluxe rims and a fun paint job.” The factory needs to slap on a new coat of paint and maybe substitute out a relatively minor part, but the car is still basically the same, with some pretty minor changes.
Those mostly cosmetic changes take pretty much no time at all - even with a day between character creation and the campaign start, it isn’t that hard just to change out the metaphorical rims.
It isn’t hard and it doesn’t break the world. Frankly, I suspect the “but it breaks the world” crowd are scapegoating species/class options because they don’t want to admit “the players that use species choices to troll were probably going to troll anyway, but I’d rather blame the mechanic than admit I rolled poorly on my insight for that player.”
I'll give you another analogy: The director says our theater company will be staging a series of original plays not unlike the Henriad and that these will be the most historically accurate productions of any play staged in the centuries since the time of Shakespeare and Marlowe in which this series of plays is to be set. What makes this project most interesting is that the cast will be given the liberty to not only come up with their roles but even submit the words and actions they will perform in them. One actor passes the audition and then protests because he or she can't play an astronaut.
You don't think the DM yielding and giving the actor what he or she wants would break that world?
Do you think the director is being inflexible unless he or she allows that actor to play an astronaut in the court of the "Virgin Queen"?
Stop acting like this is all about how bad a DM someone must be when some of us simply want to play games that bring to life at our tables literary or historical sources. Or worlds of our own imagination into which we have put a lot of time and effort to make them comparable to either.
I gave earlier the example of running a game set in warring states period Japan that is something I've personally run for Japanese students of mine the aim of which was to have fun but to do so with some degree of accuracy. A player then joining that group and launching into a tirade about how bad of a DM I must be because I said no you can't play a tiefling or a sorcerer is being a wanker. That's a player I would never want at my table even if the next game I was to be running was to allow for anything and everything.
I want to be very clear - as I have said on several posts, I think competent DMs can DM with restrictions. My experiences have been different, but I fully admit my experiences are my own and do not speak for everyone. I also have noted that I actually understand the other side—it just isn’t my cup of tea.
Otherwise, I think you clearly missed the point of my analogy - which was trying to help clear up what is very clearly a misunderstanding on your part. It was not an attack or an assertion that one is “bad DM” as you claim merely an explanation of how something you said could not compare to “months and years of planning”. Your statement was plainly wrong - you can have months and years of planning and unlimited character options, just as you can have months and years of planning a car and throw on some last minute, mostly cosmetic changes without fundamentally changing anything.
To answer your question related to your analogy, I think it was a poor choice of analogy that was non responsive to my “hey, let me help you understand something I think you are missing” post. I think you inadvertently provided evidence for my “perhaps a bad set of insight rolls prior to or surrounding session zero might be the real problem”, as your insight check led you to a defensive, tangential posture which inadvertently showed you might not understand how D&D’s collaborative, prompt-with-improve-based storytelling might differ from scripted storytelling.
Rather than dwell on that, I’ll chalk it up to a bad dice roll and wish you luck next time you toss them.
I got your point. Mine was about how just underdeveloped or video game-like the worlds people run at their tables must be if every single menu of character options is made available to players and these must be accommodated. But I'd invite you to provide us with an example of a setting of your own creation to show us how this matches even the vision of a world-builder like Tolkien, Lord Dunsany, Howard, or Leiber if you're so certain of your own abilities and want to just insult those of us who just do things differently.
I said nothing about scripted storytelling. I said those actors would come up with their own lines for that project. But you clearly don't understand that for many D&D isn't collaborative storytelling. The storytelling approach to the game is a relatively modern one compared to the one of exploration which has been with the game since the beginning. The storytellers want to be Matt Mercer and his crew. The explorers want to play in sandboxes like the best of campaign settings from days gone by or those from a DM's imagination. Perhaps ironically, I think the exploration approach makes for much better storytelling. Writing—good writing—is about the sensory landscape and the world such creates and presents to readers as much as it is about what the characters just say or do to tell the story. Good writers choose wisely to fill a world with sets and props and background characters that make sense to make the world seem as real to life as the one we live in no matter how imaginary it might be. It is comparably fan fiction to just let a player force a square into a circle.
Let’s look at this another way, you say it makes the game feel video like because choice isn’t limited.
Unlike a video game that player is potentially going to be playing that character for what 6 months, a year 3 years? Meeting up once a week to use them. Why as a DM would I not allow them the best chance of picking something they connected with and would make them less likely to drop out. Especially if they can only commit to 1 campaign. If I am any good as a DM and they have a truly amazing character concept then I can incorporate it into my world. Recently I had this. My world has no war forged in it. A player had a great concept for a warforged. Not the backstory but how they wanted to play it, he actually wanted to have no recollection of his creator letting me reveal it in time.
I didn’t want to break my rules about warforged in this world, they can’t be made, but, you have so many planes. The story I came up with, he was forged by a githzreai within limbo. One of 1000 created as mechanical gollums to help protect from the Githzerai or to act as an army that could never be mind controlled. But something went wrong and each of these constructs absorbed a blank soul gaining true life.
That piece of lore came out of me embracing a player choice, not shutting it down. It now opens up my world a little bit more and gives the opportunity to explore the planes, bring the gith war into my campaign in some way. All because I didn’t say no.
If they were any good as a player they'd be able to breathe life into a character who didn't begin for them as a build project but as 3d6 down the line how it used to be done.
Can you provide an example of a setting of your own creation that lacks the sort of class and race restrictions a DM would need to be putting in place to accurately run something in a setting from the imagination of the genre's best writers and best world-builders or from a moment in history in which it would just be humans and explain for us how this setting of yours that allows anything and everything available in the official rules could only possibly be richer in detail and as alive as they are?
For the main campaign I'm currently playing in we all started with four 0-level characters rolled randomly then chose from the survivors at the end of the first session. The character I selected from among my survivors became one of my favorite characters I've ever had. And I've been playing D&D for thirty-seven years. That character got killed months into the game. I rolled up a replacement randomly the following week and played that new character from the word go. This game has been running for what must be close to two years now.
A player who isn't going to play unless they get to play exactly what they want as if they can't do that in another game is like a kid who shows up at the park, asks to join in a child's play game of Justice League with other neighborhood kids, then demands he be allowed to be the Incredible Hulk or otherwise he's going home.
I've never met a player like that. And I've run D&D for kids.
I am not saying they will refuse to play, I am saying why wouldn’t I as a DM let them, ye there are certain races I dislike mechanically. Anything with a fly speed at low levels for instance. But really, especially given the Tasha’s rules for character creation, there is not really much of an inherent reason to prevent a player with a great character concept from enacting that concept.
But you say allowing everything doesn’t make it richer. I currently have a party of tabaxi, satyr, orc, halfling, elf, dhampir and that warforged I mentioned above. The world the players are in feels rich and they are embedded within it, we have been playing 2 and a half years there has also been a half elf, a dwarf (both died) and a minotaur and a Dragonborn, (players wanted to change class). It started out as a little town with some local issues, morphed into an aboleth fight and now they are uncovering a conspiracy involving a neighboring empire wanting to invade.
The nation they are in is a trading cross roads, as such the people are accepting of all species, but, had it started in Etresh (the invading empire) then and mixed species, half orc, half elf, half dwarf, would have been killed at birth or places into slavery. Had they started to the east, a largely human enclave, some would have been rarer. The Tabaxi come from another continent, now the game will not be visiting. The Dragonborn also came from an island chain far away and attracted a lot of attention because his people rarely leave their home. They have met tieflings, gnomes, goliaths, hobgoblins and goblins on their journey through the land. Every species has a reason for being there. Green skins are all refugees, or the children of refugees, Goliaths are frewer in number due to the historic giant empires being eradicated centuries ago, but there are still a few about.
I have run games where I handed out a random character, my experience is that players enjoy playing the game but don’t get invested, or, within a few sessions are sitting down with me to make backstory tweaks or come up with some story for the character. I have always, for 25 years of running TTRPGs believed that the whole thing is a collaboration between player and GM. That might be because DnD was never my introduction to roleplay systems. Part of that collaboration is working with my players at the creation stage and forming what kind of a game we want to play.
You seem to be saying that a world can’t be rich and exciting unless the DM has put hours and hours of preparation time in. From my experience that is only true if the story is rail tracked out, my experience of the game is that the richness is created when players take a moment to do the little things, like ask about the trees in an area, say they are going off the trail and look at a swamp, or throw me completely by telling me screw it, leave the bandits to it someone else will deal with them, we want to go to this place over here an npc mentioned in passing.
The world is its best when it is reacting to the players, this is where TTRPGs are very different to a book and a dm is not an author. If I wanted to write a novel I would, but I have no interest in that.
As a GM, I do not like to put in race and class restrictions. My players do not make anything wacky, but I would not mind seeing wacky characters and weird race-class-background combos! I want my players to feel they are exploring the D&D multiverse, so while meeting a Warforged-PDK-Selesnya Initiate wielding a Dragonlance on Exandria is unlikely, it is not impossible.
That being said, while I do not put in any mechanical limits, I prefer to not deal with evil characters, and that is about it as far as limits go.
I limit some races. I probably wouldn't want a Plasmoid or Giff on Krynn for example, though I would allow it if the pitch is cool enough. But I could definitely see Autognomes achieving sentience in Mt. Nevermind, etc.
To chip in a little more: I do limit races (right now for a lvl 4 party). I go "core" right now, it its with my IWD/Forgotten Realms "vision" of world building. I've got a party of 5 players, a couple o them are (totally) fresh and I'm working to "set the scene" as quite traditional and working on plausibly introducing the main cast (so far). There's a few Chultan characters, two of which have very definite reasoning behind being in IWD (again plausible world building).
Honestly, I just don't like the newer Fey: Harengon/Fairy/Satyr (Firbolg/Tortle/Genasi/Kender/Aarakocra) either don't gel with "my world" or just outright annoy me - in the case of the fey races/Kender, they give me a Narnia-vibe and I detest those books and don't want to "cope" with that constant trigger going off in my brain... now, it's not a hair-trigger, I know myself well enough for that not to be "an issue", but I do find them slightly annoying - best case scenario. So, why put myself or a player through having my preconceived negative connotations? It's just not something I think of as sensible.
Now, I'm thinking when the party hit ~level 8 or so, that might be the time to actively state "Gith/Genasi are actively available as choices" and I'd include flying races there too - it feels more plausible as the party level up they'd... encounter the more "hard edged" or fantastical races, so certainly I'd state those are actively available options. Spelljammer... maybe around level 12 depending on how things go.
For me, it's about that Suspension of Disbelief element and that's how I view "opening up" the race options. Again, it's a campaign set in the Frozen North, there's 3/5ths of the party I'd trust/support bringing in (say) a Genasi and making it plausible. There's 2 "noobs" I'd be wary around. There's a whole party to consider and I bust my ass worldbuilding, I want to keep it... "real". As real as can be, but that's the world I run and the game I provide. I know there's one player that's much more anime-oriented and that's not my realm of experience at all, but... they've built a character that works and makes sense - I think we just have different aesthetic tastes, but still - they're a super player/nice person and I work to make it work for them.
I think there's a huge difference between a fresh campaign and a long(er) running one. Knowing your players Versus being 2-6 sessions in, there's a gulf of experience. We went months with a core of 4 - with other players coming/going and that "elusive" 5th, just... I wasn't providiing the world that player wanted/needed - and that's fine and cuts both (4-5 ways). It's about enjoyment - if I'm going to bake a cake... It's probably going to be some kind of Cinnamon/fruit creation - and if you like that flavour, come share and if you don't, go bake your own cake or share someone else's etc. etc. and that's fine too.
There's a few other things to consider:
The dice are random, characters die. Sometimes that's just how it goes.
I aim for writing arcs - including levelling, story progression (backstory progression) and (seasonal) breaks. Xmas, summer/travel holidays etc. *there's no session at all if I'm on holiday, but that's "planned" and if players do the same, I'll try to plan for that "Campaign-wise". I also try for a Halloween theme sub-adventure annually too.
IRLstuff. People have bad days, real lie stress a whole bunch of stuff. Sometimes players have spent the "whole week" thinking about what their character/the party's gonna do (sweet), other times their car/wisdom tooth/relationship exploded and they just want a beer and be more passive, roll the dice, but still be amongst friends/a peer group.
All these things, make it a complex balancing act - and as a DM - literally "me too", the gf left me, flat tire, unexpected bill, do not pass GO! etc. etc. for me - if I can slot into the world easily, because it's building and working, envisionable... so much the easier - if I've had a bad day/week and can "autopilot" to a degree, well "good" or plausible world building's a boon, but there's factors that can make that easier for me and I'm open/honest about what and where they are. I run a world somewhere between Bakker/Abercrombie/Tolkien. It's not a "light" world, there's no Pratchett in there for example. Yet comedy exists just as it does irl, but that comes from the camararderie of the table, not my perception of what's funny for others.
Anyway, I'm rambling and far more into this than perhaps an adult should be.
But how? How could I have responded here and removed from my response my previous post? It won't let me do that.
You go into the "Source Code" button in your post editor after clicking "Quote". The one that looks like this: </>
You should see, at the very top, a line that reads like this: <blockquote class="source-quote">
That's the quote for the newest post, the one you're ACTUALLY quoting. To get rid of everything else, find the next instance of <blockquote class="source-quote"> in your source code. Highlight it, then scroll down to the place where you see the text you're trying to quote while highlighting everything on the way. Delete EVERYTHING from that second <blockquote class="source-quote"> to the text saying "But how? How could I..."
That will eliminate every other quote in your post and make your posts three hundred billion times easier and less painful to read.
I saw mention about how insane it would be to build a campaign from scratch around a group of characters who had no boundaries on their creation.
That's a good, solid rule-of-thumb, but there are (very, very rare) exceptions.
I've seen it work once with a group of people who understand each other well. It was supposed to be a single celebratory one-shot with throwaway joke-like characters but has been going for years now with a solid homebrewed world with those same characters. The characters were made without restrictions, and the DM built a one-shot for them. That was the plan five years ago... but these people have known and worked with each other for decades. It had all the makings of a disaster, but it worked because they work well together.
If you have any doubts about anyone at the table, clear the air and communicate. Don't fault a DM for setting boundaries. It's really commonplace. (Other tabletop games. Video games. And yes. D&D.) If it's not your thing, you have options.
Don't bully a DM to get your way. Nobody will be happy at the table the same as if a DM bullied players. Shake hands, go do what makes you happy and stay friends.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I asked for an example of how rich in detail one of your settings is. You responded by pretty much just listing all the species in it. But that's not what I meant. By rich in detail and full of life I mean the world. It's factions. A city in it teeming with life and memorable NPCs. Or what makes any species in it differ from those of the same species in any other world. Somewhere as seemingly "homogenous" as Zimbabwe, Mongolia or Iran isn't structurally, sensorially, or culturally lacking just because they're not crawling with every species from the player's handbook that now just seem to be floating in some abstract homogenized blob of a multiverse. You're confusing what makes a world simply cosmopolitan with what makes one truly unique.
It is the opposite of railroading to build a fully developed sandbox world and let the players just explore it. Those worlds are at their best when their environments, objects, and denizens react to the players. You're conflating a campaign setting with thecampaign. They are not the same thing. No one here is talking about just running a scripted adventure.
I think that having more species and class options that you've fit into your world shows a richer, more complete, developed, and enjoyable setting. When I am designing something, I want my players to be able to have fun and use the material that they enjoy. Even if I didn't have everything mapped out and all the details about how different groups and species worked and interacted before the campaign started, my players will help create a lot of that lore via their actions, decisions, and what they decide to canonize and play into during the game.
To me at least, the world is better and a funner (yes, that's a word) place to run a campaign in if you don't leave out large chunks of material and instead let your players play the way they want, with the materials and mechanics they want to play with. Having memorable Non Player Characters, cities, and factions are great. That being said, the party are the heroes and main characters of a story, and the most important part of it for me is to let them be what they want.
Raildroading is reducing the options of your players or forcing them down a set, limited path. The more and more options you restrict, the more your players are going to feel limited or like they have little to no choices, even before the campaign begins.
Now, play however you want. It is your game, your group, and your table to do with as you will. As the Dungeon Master, you have every right to limit certain options, classes, and species, and most players will be fine with it. That being said, I think it makes for a more enjoyable and memorable game if your players are able to play the characters they want instead of having a decent chunk of their choices restricted from the get go.
But hey, am I seriously debating with an account that's been created less than 14 hours ago and has since went to 2 different threads to parrot the sentiment of a user who just got their avatar tucked?
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I'm not sure why this argument is still going on. None of these decisions should unilaterally be from any one player, with the DM being simply the player who is the referee. These decisions should all be made by the group collaboratively. Everyone sits down at Session 0 and talks about what kind of game they want to play and hash out the setting and the various character options they want to be available. If there are restrictions or houserules or homebrew, they all get discussed and decided together.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm not sure why this argument is still going on. None of these decisions should unilaterally be from any one player, with the DM being simply the player who is the referee. These decisions should all be made by the group collaboratively. Everyone sits down at Session 0 and talks about what kind of game they want to play and hash out the setting and the various character options they want to be available. If there are restrictions or houserules or homebrew, they all get discussed and decided together.
An Iranian DM I know wants to run a game set during the Islamic Golden Age and inspired by the folk tales found in One Thousand and One Nights.
A session 0 is held during which the players ask if they can play an array of high fantasy races and pick classes that would be as anachronistic as they would be alien to the world and the DM tries to explain as diplomatically as possible how this would just ruin the experience.
They protest. The DM stands his or her ground.
Is that DM being unreasonable?
Or are those players just being a bunch of self entitled wankers?
Neither. These people just want to play different games and should either find a compromise that they can all live with or amicably go their separate ways and find different people to play with. This isn't that hard, and doesn't need to get to the point of ad hominem like you did.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Given how asymmetric the time investment is between playing a game and running a game I think game masters should be given essentially free reign on determining what is and isn't present in their world frame.
The player has free reign to decide whether or not to sit at the table. Only the most entitled of people would expect that a DM should customise the world frame specifically for their character.
Yes yes, DMs have the hardest job and thus deserve the most agency. That doesn't mean people suggesting that good DMs should try flexibility and compromise are wrong to suggest that.
Ad hominem is bringing things up that have nothing to do with the conversation at hand to try to undermine one's opponent.
Slightly off. The ad hominem fallacy is attacking the people or person instead of the argument. What you're talking about is the non sequitur fallacy.
I've not done that.
Calling the players in your scenarios "self entitled wankers" is very clearly ad hominem and unnecessary. When one person in your example is called "unreasonable" and the others are called an insult, that is not only ad hominem, but also a bias. So yes, in fact, you have. You should stop that, it doesn't help the strength of your argument.
Someone else certainly did when they mentioned how new my account was. But you're on the same page as that someone as far as this discussion is concerned so you won't call then out for it. There's a word for that beginning with the letter h.
One, I don't even know who you're talking about, my comment wasn't taking any side, I think the argument is moot and there needn't be any sides. Two, you replied directly to me and I was continuing the thread by replying directly to comments directed at me. Is your account new? I wasn't paying attention and it's irrelevant to my comments anyway. Which makes this actually a non sequitur
You're right, though. It just comes down to different play styles. But then nobody saying there is nothing wrong with class and race restrictions is saying every game must have them. It's those ardently opposed to them insisting the way they play is better or funner who obviously think each and every world a DM dreams up must revolve around them as the centre of its universe.
This whole thing is such a silly argument. However restricted or open any particular game is should be decided on a case by case basis in a collaborative effort of the entire group. Problem solved.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Since even O (Original not One) D&D the very first step in character creation has been to roll the character's ability scores.
Then and only then would a player choose his or her class and race.
So what exactly are players doing if they're coming to each and every table with the expectation they can just play whatever they want?
Insisting the DM not use that system and allow them to point-buy their way into what they want?
Insisting the DM allow them to reroll until they've got what they want?
How many of you have participated in games held at conventions where you're typically given pre-rolled characters and are then required to breathe life into those characters ? I've provide pre-rolled characters for any students for whom I run D&D and you know what? They don't care. They still have the time of their lives.
As the original post says it's a shift in orientation: players now expect the game be tailor-made for them. The DM who has put in much more time and effort so those players even get to play becomes nothing more than a host.
Accommodating their friends does not magically turn the DM into a doormat. And if they are, they likely have problems a game can't solve - such as needing some assertiveness training.
As for Original D&D saying you should never show up with a character concept before you roll your stats, bollocks to that. Here's what D&D 5th Edition says:
Before you dive into step 1 below, think about the kind of adventurer you want to play. You might be a courageous fighter, a skulking rogue, a fervent cleric, or a flamboyant wizard. Or you might be more interested in an unconventional character, such as a brawny rogue who likes hand-to-hand combat, or a sharpshooter who picks off enemies from afar. Do you like fantasy fiction featuring dwarves or elves? Try building a character of one of those races. Do you want your character to be the toughest adventurer at the table? Consider the fighter class. If you don’t know where else to begin, take a look at the illustrations in any Dungeons & Dragons book to see what catches your interest.
Once you have a character in mind, follow these steps in order, making decisions that reflect the character you want. Your conception of your character might evolve with each choice you make. What’s important is that you come to the table with a character you’re excited to play.
But just because they players have the right to think of a concept, that doesn't mean the DM can't tell them no. This part comes even before that one:
Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.
There - you want to ban X race or Y class in Z setting, you have express permission to do so right in the Player's Handbook.
It's not "silly" when it shows a total shift in orientation towards the game.
I think you may be laboring under the mistaken impression that I have taken a side in the debate of this thread. I have not. I do not think either conclusion of "DM's have unilateral prerogative to determine what character options players can choose" OR "Players have the right to choose any character options they want and DM's have no say" is right or healthy for gaming. When I said the whole argument is silly, I meant the whole argument of this thread, not your specific argument. I'm not sure why you're trying to fight me about this.
re: "The ad hominem fallacy is attacking the people or person instead of the argument. What you're talking about is the non sequitur fallacy."
Actually, no.
Actually I was basically giving you the definition of ad hominem, which is to attack the person instead of the point of the argument. This was in direct response to you when you said
Ad hominem is bringing things up that have nothing to do with the conversation at hand to try to undermine one's opponent.
My reply had no relation to any comment said to you by anyone else. I gather that someone made a comment about how new your account was? Ok. Take that up with them. My reply to you was only to you and was only pointing out your slightly incorrect definition of ad hominem.
Furthermore, my original point was saying that your dichotomy of unreasonable DM and "self entitled wanker" players was very clearly ad hominem. There was no need to call people that, and insulting people doesn't strengthen your point.
Because the very thing they brought up that had nothing to do with the conversation was brought up to personally attack me; they mentioned how new my account was and did so to question my character and deflect from my argument.
And how does this have anything to do with any of my points? This was a comment made by someone else which I neither brought up nor replied to.
That is a perfect example of ad hominem; non sequituris what you were doing when you tried to twist and turn the conversation towards any partiality I might have shown for restrictions and towards my allegedly not knowing what ad hominem means to deflect from the argument.
You seem to be many layers of mistaken, right now. I made no comment about anything regarding your debates on restrictions, except that the entire argument of the whole thread is moot. And you legitimately were mistaken about the definition of ad hominem.
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I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
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Considering that, according to this poll, 85.7% of people are okay with limitations….
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I feel like most players have a whole bunch of character ideas to develop so it’s not a big deal when they can’t play a particular one. DM’s have a whole world to concern themselves with; players just make characters LOL
Let’s look at this another way, you say it makes the game feel video like because choice isn’t limited.
Unlike a video game that player is potentially going to be playing that character for what 6 months, a year 3 years? Meeting up once a week to use them. Why as a DM would I not allow them the best chance of picking something they connected with and would make them less likely to drop out. Especially if they can only commit to 1 campaign. If I am any good as a DM and they have a truly amazing character concept then I can incorporate it into my world. Recently I had this. My world has no war forged in it. A player had a great concept for a warforged. Not the backstory but how they wanted to play it, he actually wanted to have no recollection of his creator letting me reveal it in time.
I didn’t want to break my rules about warforged in this world, they can’t be made, but, you have so many planes. The story I came up with, he was forged by a githzreai within limbo. One of 1000 created as mechanical gollums to help protect from the Githzerai or to act as an army that could never be mind controlled. But something went wrong and each of these constructs absorbed a blank soul gaining true life.
That piece of lore came out of me embracing a player choice, not shutting it down. It now opens up my world a little bit more and gives the opportunity to explore the planes, bring the gith war into my campaign in some way. All because I didn’t say no.
I am not saying they will refuse to play, I am saying why wouldn’t I as a DM let them, ye there are certain races I dislike mechanically. Anything with a fly speed at low levels for instance. But really, especially given the Tasha’s rules for character creation, there is not really much of an inherent reason to prevent a player with a great character concept from enacting that concept.
But you say allowing everything doesn’t make it richer. I currently have a party of tabaxi, satyr, orc, halfling, elf, dhampir and that warforged I mentioned above. The world the players are in feels rich and they are embedded within it, we have been playing 2 and a half years there has also been a half elf, a dwarf (both died) and a minotaur and a Dragonborn, (players wanted to change class). It started out as a little town with some local issues, morphed into an aboleth fight and now they are uncovering a conspiracy involving a neighboring empire wanting to invade.
The nation they are in is a trading cross roads, as such the people are accepting of all species, but, had it started in Etresh (the invading empire) then and mixed species, half orc, half elf, half dwarf, would have been killed at birth or places into slavery. Had they started to the east, a largely human enclave, some would have been rarer. The Tabaxi come from another continent, now the game will not be visiting. The Dragonborn also came from an island chain far away and attracted a lot of attention because his people rarely leave their home. They have met tieflings, gnomes, goliaths, hobgoblins and goblins on their journey through the land. Every species has a reason for being there. Green skins are all refugees, or the children of refugees, Goliaths are frewer in number due to the historic giant empires being eradicated centuries ago, but there are still a few about.
I have run games where I handed out a random character, my experience is that players enjoy playing the game but don’t get invested, or, within a few sessions are sitting down with me to make backstory tweaks or come up with some story for the character. I have always, for 25 years of running TTRPGs believed that the whole thing is a collaboration between player and GM. That might be because DnD was never my introduction to roleplay systems. Part of that collaboration is working with my players at the creation stage and forming what kind of a game we want to play.
You seem to be saying that a world can’t be rich and exciting unless the DM has put hours and hours of preparation time in. From my experience that is only true if the story is rail tracked out, my experience of the game is that the richness is created when players take a moment to do the little things, like ask about the trees in an area, say they are going off the trail and look at a swamp, or throw me completely by telling me screw it, leave the bandits to it someone else will deal with them, we want to go to this place over here an npc mentioned in passing.
The world is its best when it is reacting to the players, this is where TTRPGs are very different to a book and a dm is not an author. If I wanted to write a novel I would, but I have no interest in that.
As a GM, I do not like to put in race and class restrictions. My players do not make anything wacky, but I would not mind seeing wacky characters and weird race-class-background combos! I want my players to feel they are exploring the D&D multiverse, so while meeting a Warforged-PDK-Selesnya Initiate wielding a Dragonlance on Exandria is unlikely, it is not impossible.
That being said, while I do not put in any mechanical limits, I prefer to not deal with evil characters, and that is about it as far as limits go.
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I limit some races. I probably wouldn't want a Plasmoid or Giff on Krynn for example, though I would allow it if the pitch is cool enough. But I could definitely see Autognomes achieving sentience in Mt. Nevermind, etc.
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To chip in a little more: I do limit races (right now for a lvl 4 party). I go "core" right now, it its with my IWD/Forgotten Realms "vision" of world building. I've got a party of 5 players, a couple o them are (totally) fresh and I'm working to "set the scene" as quite traditional and working on plausibly introducing the main cast (so far). There's a few Chultan characters, two of which have very definite reasoning behind being in IWD (again plausible world building).
Honestly, I just don't like the newer Fey: Harengon/Fairy/Satyr (Firbolg/Tortle/Genasi/Kender/Aarakocra) either don't gel with "my world" or just outright annoy me - in the case of the fey races/Kender, they give me a Narnia-vibe and I detest those books and don't want to "cope" with that constant trigger going off in my brain... now, it's not a hair-trigger, I know myself well enough for that not to be "an issue", but I do find them slightly annoying - best case scenario. So, why put myself or a player through having my preconceived negative connotations? It's just not something I think of as sensible.
Now, I'm thinking when the party hit ~level 8 or so, that might be the time to actively state "Gith/Genasi are actively available as choices" and I'd include flying races there too - it feels more plausible as the party level up they'd... encounter the more "hard edged" or fantastical races, so certainly I'd state those are actively available options. Spelljammer... maybe around level 12 depending on how things go.
For me, it's about that Suspension of Disbelief element and that's how I view "opening up" the race options. Again, it's a campaign set in the Frozen North, there's 3/5ths of the party I'd trust/support bringing in (say) a Genasi and making it plausible. There's 2 "noobs" I'd be wary around. There's a whole party to consider and I bust my ass worldbuilding, I want to keep it... "real". As real as can be, but that's the world I run and the game I provide. I know there's one player that's much more anime-oriented and that's not my realm of experience at all, but... they've built a character that works and makes sense - I think we just have different aesthetic tastes, but still - they're a super player/nice person and I work to make it work for them.
I think there's a huge difference between a fresh campaign and a long(er) running one. Knowing your players Versus being 2-6 sessions in, there's a gulf of experience. We went months with a core of 4 - with other players coming/going and that "elusive" 5th, just... I wasn't providiing the world that player wanted/needed - and that's fine and cuts both (4-5 ways). It's about enjoyment - if I'm going to bake a cake... It's probably going to be some kind of Cinnamon/fruit creation - and if you like that flavour, come share and if you don't, go bake your own cake or share someone else's etc. etc. and that's fine too.
There's a few other things to consider:
All these things, make it a complex balancing act - and as a DM - literally "me too", the gf left me, flat tire, unexpected bill, do not pass GO! etc. etc. for me - if I can slot into the world easily, because it's building and working, envisionable... so much the easier - if I've had a bad day/week and can "autopilot" to a degree, well "good" or plausible world building's a boon, but there's factors that can make that easier for me and I'm open/honest about what and where they are. I run a world somewhere between Bakker/Abercrombie/Tolkien. It's not a "light" world, there's no Pratchett in there for example. Yet comedy exists just as it does irl, but that comes from the camararderie of the table, not my perception of what's funny for others.
Anyway, I'm rambling and far more into this than perhaps an adult should be.
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I really should write a signature guide for trimming quote chains.
SHORT VERSION:
To go from this:
To this:
You go into the "Source Code" button in your post editor after clicking "Quote". The one that looks like this: </>
You should see, at the very top, a line that reads like this: <blockquote class="source-quote">
That's the quote for the newest post, the one you're ACTUALLY quoting. To get rid of everything else, find the next instance of <blockquote class="source-quote"> in your source code. Highlight it, then scroll down to the place where you see the text you're trying to quote while highlighting everything on the way. Delete EVERYTHING from that second <blockquote class="source-quote"> to the text saying "But how? How could I..."
That will eliminate every other quote in your post and make your posts three hundred billion times easier and less painful to read.
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Bangin'. Thanks for being willing to learn, it's a super useful forum skill.
Now back to our regularly scheduled Internet troll fight. Heh.
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I saw mention about how insane it would be to build a campaign from scratch around a group of characters who had no boundaries on their creation.
That's a good, solid rule-of-thumb, but there are (very, very rare) exceptions.
I've seen it work once with a group of people who understand each other well. It was supposed to be a single celebratory one-shot with throwaway joke-like characters but has been going for years now with a solid homebrewed world with those same characters. The characters were made without restrictions, and the DM built a one-shot for them. That was the plan five years ago... but these people have known and worked with each other for decades. It had all the makings of a disaster, but it worked because they work well together.
If you have any doubts about anyone at the table, clear the air and communicate. Don't fault a DM for setting boundaries. It's really commonplace. (Other tabletop games. Video games. And yes. D&D.) If it's not your thing, you have options.
Don't bully a DM to get your way. Nobody will be happy at the table the same as if a DM bullied players. Shake hands, go do what makes you happy and stay friends.
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I think that having more species and class options that you've fit into your world shows a richer, more complete, developed, and enjoyable setting. When I am designing something, I want my players to be able to have fun and use the material that they enjoy. Even if I didn't have everything mapped out and all the details about how different groups and species worked and interacted before the campaign started, my players will help create a lot of that lore via their actions, decisions, and what they decide to canonize and play into during the game.
To me at least, the world is better and a funner (yes, that's a word) place to run a campaign in if you don't leave out large chunks of material and instead let your players play the way they want, with the materials and mechanics they want to play with. Having memorable Non Player Characters, cities, and factions are great. That being said, the party are the heroes and main characters of a story, and the most important part of it for me is to let them be what they want.
Raildroading is reducing the options of your players or forcing them down a set, limited path. The more and more options you restrict, the more your players are going to feel limited or like they have little to no choices, even before the campaign begins.
Now, play however you want. It is your game, your group, and your table to do with as you will. As the Dungeon Master, you have every right to limit certain options, classes, and species, and most players will be fine with it. That being said, I think it makes for a more enjoyable and memorable game if your players are able to play the characters they want instead of having a decent chunk of their choices restricted from the get go.
But hey, am I seriously debating with an account that's been created less than 14 hours ago and has since went to 2 different threads to parrot the sentiment of a user who just got their avatar tucked?
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HERE.I'm not sure why this argument is still going on. None of these decisions should unilaterally be from any one player, with the DM being simply the player who is the referee. These decisions should all be made by the group collaboratively. Everyone sits down at Session 0 and talks about what kind of game they want to play and hash out the setting and the various character options they want to be available. If there are restrictions or houserules or homebrew, they all get discussed and decided together.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Neither. These people just want to play different games and should either find a compromise that they can all live with or amicably go their separate ways and find different people to play with. This isn't that hard, and doesn't need to get to the point of ad hominem like you did.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Given how asymmetric the time investment is between playing a game and running a game I think game masters should be given essentially free reign on determining what is and isn't present in their world frame.
The player has free reign to decide whether or not to sit at the table. Only the most entitled of people would expect that a DM should customise the world frame specifically for their character.
Yes yes, DMs have the hardest job and thus deserve the most agency. That doesn't mean people suggesting that good DMs should try flexibility and compromise are wrong to suggest that.
Slightly off. The ad hominem fallacy is attacking the people or person instead of the argument. What you're talking about is the non sequitur fallacy.
Calling the players in your scenarios "self entitled wankers" is very clearly ad hominem and unnecessary. When one person in your example is called "unreasonable" and the others are called an insult, that is not only ad hominem, but also a bias. So yes, in fact, you have. You should stop that, it doesn't help the strength of your argument.
One, I don't even know who you're talking about, my comment wasn't taking any side, I think the argument is moot and there needn't be any sides. Two, you replied directly to me and I was continuing the thread by replying directly to comments directed at me. Is your account new? I wasn't paying attention and it's irrelevant to my comments anyway. Which makes this actually a non sequitur
This whole thing is such a silly argument. However restricted or open any particular game is should be decided on a case by case basis in a collaborative effort of the entire group. Problem solved.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Accommodating their friends does not magically turn the DM into a doormat. And if they are, they likely have problems a game can't solve - such as needing some assertiveness training.
As for Original D&D saying you should never show up with a character concept before you roll your stats, bollocks to that. Here's what D&D 5th Edition says:
But just because they players have the right to think of a concept, that doesn't mean the DM can't tell them no. This part comes even before that one:
There - you want to ban X race or Y class in Z setting, you have express permission to do so right in the Player's Handbook.
I think you may be laboring under the mistaken impression that I have taken a side in the debate of this thread. I have not. I do not think either conclusion of "DM's have unilateral prerogative to determine what character options players can choose" OR "Players have the right to choose any character options they want and DM's have no say" is right or healthy for gaming. When I said the whole argument is silly, I meant the whole argument of this thread, not your specific argument. I'm not sure why you're trying to fight me about this.
Actually I was basically giving you the definition of ad hominem, which is to attack the person instead of the point of the argument. This was in direct response to you when you said
My reply had no relation to any comment said to you by anyone else. I gather that someone made a comment about how new your account was? Ok. Take that up with them. My reply to you was only to you and was only pointing out your slightly incorrect definition of ad hominem.
Furthermore, my original point was saying that your dichotomy of unreasonable DM and "self entitled wanker" players was very clearly ad hominem. There was no need to call people that, and insulting people doesn't strengthen your point.
And how does this have anything to do with any of my points? This was a comment made by someone else which I neither brought up nor replied to.
You seem to be many layers of mistaken, right now. I made no comment about anything regarding your debates on restrictions, except that the entire argument of the whole thread is moot. And you legitimately were mistaken about the definition of ad hominem.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!