I don't think one of my players understands the entire point of D&D.
He thinks that D&D is a sandbox in wich he can do whatever he wants, as long as he can make rules for it, as long as he can write it down like is could come from WotC.
Splitted personalities giving him several different characters and stats, a puppet master who has his own personal neverdeath puppet (like an animal companion, but in a necromancer kind of way), a lich, a burning skeleton, a magic user with four magical arms...
I granted him his burning skeleton, tweeking the Undead stats, but he doesn't seem satisfied.
He thinks about D&D like his own personal playground for his fantasy ideas, but that is not the way I see it.
I have been DM-ing for 7 months right now, and gave birth to a whole crew of characters, for me and my friends. But this one guy, he still keeps thinking that he can be as creative as he wants. His skeleton wanted to seperate his bones to get free, he wants his hair to give light, but doesn't want to have disadvantage on stealth checks then, and i can go on for a while after that.
I see D&D more from the rules, I have to I think, but he doesn't even care about them. I can't talk it into him that what he does isn't good for the other players, because he just sees himself.
Like I said, he sees D&D as a sandbox in which he can do anything, but I see it as a premade realm, where you play with the options the books provide, tweek them as you wish, but don't start from nothing. I gain the feeling that the player thinks about D&D as a focus for his creativity, and I like the ideas, but the things he does aren't possible in my world, in the options provided.
Am I wrong?
Is he?
Is my vision of D&D not what it is supposed to be, or is his?
How do I make him clear that what he wants isn't what D&D provides him?
Neither of you are wrong, per se. It just sounds like you want to play different games. Personally, I tend towards your description of D&D has a set of rules, which are designed to make the game fair and fun for everyone playing. From your description, it sounds like this player doesn’t quite get that. D&D can be something like that player wants, if everyone else at the table agrees to go with it. Though what they describe is pretty far from the rules to the point that it’s arguable whether or not it is still D&D, or a different game.
I’d suggest a session 0, where you explain to the player, and the other players, that you are going to run a game that sticks close to RAW as you can get. And if that’s not what they want to play, then they should probably find another table.
And fwiw, as you are pretty new, I’d very much say you should stick to RAW. It can be easy to make homebrew stuff that doesn’t work. Stick to the rules until you understand them properly, and figure out what you can bend without breaking it.
He is wrong, and you are right. This is because you are the DM and everything that exists and happens in your game is entirely at your discretion. It sounds like you've brought this on yourself a little, since you've already allowed him to play a homebrew rules character.
You need to have an out of game conversation with the player.
Tell the player that he needs to read the rules in the Players' Handbook if he hasn't already done so.
Inform him that whenever he wants to take an action, he can start it by saying "I'm going to..." unless it is a weird or unusual action, or it directly impacts another creature. He must always state what he is going to attempt to do, not what happens. For example, he can ask if he can pull his bones apart to get out of chains: the DM then decides on the success of the action.
Inform him that he cannot invent any rules of his own, and that you don't want him giving you his homebrew. The DM is the only one who can invent any rules. If there's something he wants to be/do in the game, he can ask you if he can be/do that and you create the rules for it. He does not get to suggest them or give you ideas - he is trying to be the DM and a player at the same time.
Tell him that unless you state differently, from now on everything in the game will work as it's written in the rules.
It's tough to have that conversation, but he clearly thinks he's playing a different game to the one you want to run.
My advice to your player is he needs to read the rules and figure out how to do what he wants within the rules as they’re written. And it’s his job to do the legwork of learning the rules and figuring out how to get what he wants while following the rules. You have enough work on your plate as the DM.
D&D has a specific set of rules and player options, anything outside of that is up to the DM to decide to incorporate. Unless you specifically agreed to add this kind of stuff for that player then they shouldn't expect to be able to add any homebrew material. And if the DM does decide to allow homebrew they are also going to do it in a way that is doesn't break the game mechanically.
If this was me I'd explain that this is a game, games have rules and limitations because those limitation create challenges to overcome. Without challenges/limitation/rules there is no game and you are just pretending to beat up monsters.
If they don't understand and agree to this, you just need to tell them that what concept of D&D they have in their mind isn't the game you are running, and if they want to play that then it's not going to be at your table.
If he wants to play a character with dissociative disorder then let him play said character. Just remind him that his race, class and abilities are unchanged. Tell him you are looking forward to him coming off as a lich to a group of townsmen when dressed in plate with an obvious human head, how is he going to pull it off without ending up in the towns sanitarium. If he wants to pretend to be someone else in the dungeon or around the party he can probably get away with it, but to do that in a town with peasants who have seen creatures become possessed, magic, demons and devils, and flying monstrosities -- he'd be locked up or killed almost immediately out of fright. Unless you are playing in a world where everyone has advanced degrees and would accept that as normal behavior.
He'll either treat it as a roleplay at the right time OR if he gets upset and flips out and quit, congratulations you just got rid of a guy who was using you as computer program to run his video game where he's the lead player and everyone else is his NPC's.
The only real way out of this is an out of game conversation between you and the player or players. You can't fix anything by trying to show the character how it works in game, you need to talk to the player.
First, the role of the DM is to arbitrate the interactions of the characters and their choice of actions with the world that the DM has created. The rules create guidelines for resolving this. When a player says that their character is taking an action, the DM resolves what happens and how it works. There are several possible responses.
- the DM listens and says that the action will require a skill check of some sort. The player rolls and the DM narrates the result.
- the DM listens and says that the action requires an attack roll or saving throw (usually when attacking - either in or starting combat - or doing something that might be particularly risky).
- the DM listens and says that the action described isn't possible
Interpretation of the character action is based on the rules of the game and how the DM wants to run it. The DM doesn't have to always follow THE rules but it is a good idea for the DM to follow SOME specific rules so that the players know what to expect when they describe an action.
It sounds to me like you haven't been using enough of the third option with this player.
"Splitted personalities giving him several different characters and stats, a puppet master who has his own personal neverdeath puppet (like an animal companion, but in a necromancer kind of way), a lich, a burning skeleton, a magic user with four magical arms..."
Just say no. You have one body and one set of stats. Just because there is an issue that causes your mind to function differently at times does not create different characters and stats (unless the DM decides that is what they want to allow - but personally I'd say no). The player is allowed to have wide leeway in making roleplaying choices but the player has NO say in what mechanical/rules effects those choices may have.
The "neverdeath" puppet could be a dolly which the character imagines has burning hair and mutters threatening words. Perhaps after reaching a high enough level in a class the character could cast animate dead and have an animated skeleton. Alternatively, a DM could customize the Find Familiar spell to create something appropriate. However, those choices are entirely up to the DM, not the player.
Anyway, D&D is a sandbox where the characters really can try to do anything they like. However, the DM adjudicates the rules of the world and should also make these rules clear to the players so that they don't keep walking around saying they will do clearly impossible things. The DM decides what is possible. A character can't convince a king to give up their throne with a roll of 20 on a persuasion check - the DM doesn't ask for a roll because the task is impossible - the character can never succeed at that task. Similarly, it sounds like many of the things this player describes aren't possible for their character in the context of the game world and the DM needs to calmly but firmly make the player aware of how the world works and what sorts of things are possible and what aren't and that your decisions are based on the rules and logic of how the world works.
The rules serve to bring consistency to the gameplay from one player to the next. They are a required part of what makes the game playable. If you, the DM, were to make custom rulings for each player there is an opportunity for a massive inconsistency to occur, and favoritism (or the perception of favoritism) will be the new rule that is followed.
If your friend can't understand this, then don't play with them. If that means finding a new group to play with, so be it. I'm all for working to make sure the party players enjoy the game, but I'm not ok with babysitting a spoiled brat who wants the rules to be bent to their whim, to only serve their character. If it can't be applied equally across the board to all players, I would suggest that you ignore it.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Neither of you are wrong, per se. It just sounds like you want to play different games.
Signal boosting this very important point.
Your player sounds like a Rule of Cool guy - "I have this creative idea and I want you to bend the rules so it can work." You sound like a Cool of Rule DM - "I have these fair boundaries that you can be creative within." D&D supports both styles of play, but it doesn't support them well at the same table.
I echo the advice of having a conversation with the player about how you run your game and what you can and cannot offer him. Ultimately, if he wants a gaming experience where he can make stuff up and homebrew a ton, he's not going to be satisfied in your campaign. And yes, while it's the responsibility of a DM to ensure their players are having fun, it is not the responsibility of the DM to run a campaign they don't enjoy just to cater to one particular player. Not all players fit every campaign, and not every DM is right for every player - even if you're friends in real life. And that's totally okay. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, as they say.
The rule of cool extending to playing something with multiple different sets of stats is not D&D - there are other game systems which support this concept.
The player does need to be told how characters work in D&D - and that they control one character, with a particular set of abilities - and that character will gain additional abilities over time (by levelling up, and/or finding new spells/items).
The abilities are limited by class and race - the description of each ability is given on the character sheet in front of the player - and expanded descriptions are available in the Basic Rules (free), Player's Handbook or other publications.
Some players don't like to read lots of things - but explaining the "limited set of abilities" will help them understand the approach that D&D takes.
"Rule of cool" presumes something is in fact "cool." Self-indulgence is rarely cool, and is often uncool. Where rule of cool was popularized, when you see it invoked, the player is going off something on an established character sheet and pushing a mechanic in novel, interesting, and yes "cool" ways, or asking for something character consistent that requires the DM to adjudicate "how we're going to do this." The problem player in this instance is neither of those cases. Rather than building a character and developing a character within the rules of the game, the player wants their lack of focus and attention to be turned into a "special" character who functions on the mechanics of "how bout I?" with no real rhyme or reason, literally begging the DM for accomodation of player's whim at the expense of everyone else who's, you know, playing the game.
An important part of the game is making choices and see how those choices literally play out over the game. Part of the game is not finding a limitation to your character and building up an alternative statted "personality" (though, that's not true as what's presented are entirely different 'incarnations' of the character, otherwise we'd just be talking INT/WIS/CHR, and let's not get into someone trying to make reference to what is in real life a "disorder" into a power up at the players control) that will remedy that limitation. That is not rule of cool. That's just b.s.
I was disappointed there was some weird applications of "both sides" rhetoric going on here. I was glad to see most folks do see, at least as DM represented the case, a clear party at fault in making the game problematic. Really, sometimes game behavior can be just wrong.
Let's also recognize the truth of the "sandbox" metaphor. There is "more freedom" in a sandbox, yes, but a sandbox nevertheless has parameters. One of the parameters is consistent character play.
Honestly sometimes it seems new DMs simply need what are sometimes called "verbal judo" skills to roll a player's id into a constructive role in their game. It's one of those DM soft skills, but it seems like the DMs who seek help in this regard need to recognize how players like the one outlined will continue to push and test to see how many game boundaries they can break.
I don't think one of my players understands the entire point of D&D.
He thinks that D&D is a sandbox in wich he can do whatever he wants, as long as he can make rules for it, as long as he can write it down like is could come from WotC.
Splitted personalities giving him several different characters and stats, a puppet master who has his own personal neverdeath puppet (like an animal companion, but in a necromancer kind of way), a lich, a burning skeleton, a magic user with four magical arms...
I granted him his burning skeleton, tweeking the Undead stats, but he doesn't seem satisfied.
He thinks about D&D like his own personal playground for his fantasy ideas, but that is not the way I see it.
I have been DM-ing for 7 months right now, and gave birth to a whole crew of characters, for me and my friends. But this one guy, he still keeps thinking that he can be as creative as he wants. His skeleton wanted to seperate his bones to get free, he wants his hair to give light, but doesn't want to have disadvantage on stealth checks then, and i can go on for a while after that.
I see D&D more from the rules, I have to I think, but he doesn't even care about them. I can't talk it into him that what he does isn't good for the other players, because he just sees himself.
Like I said, he sees D&D as a sandbox in which he can do anything, but I see it as a premade realm, where you play with the options the books provide, tweek them as you wish, but don't start from nothing. I gain the feeling that the player thinks about D&D as a focus for his creativity, and I like the ideas, but the things he does aren't possible in my world, in the options provided.
Am I wrong?
Is he?
Is my vision of D&D not what it is supposed to be, or is his?
How do I make him clear that what he wants isn't what D&D provides him?
Help me, please...
Neither of you are wrong, per se. It just sounds like you want to play different games.
Personally, I tend towards your description of D&D has a set of rules, which are designed to make the game fair and fun for everyone playing. From your description, it sounds like this player doesn’t quite get that. D&D can be something like that player wants, if everyone else at the table agrees to go with it. Though what they describe is pretty far from the rules to the point that it’s arguable whether or not it is still D&D, or a different game.
I’d suggest a session 0, where you explain to the player, and the other players, that you are going to run a game that sticks close to RAW as you can get. And if that’s not what they want to play, then they should probably find another table.
And fwiw, as you are pretty new, I’d very much say you should stick to RAW. It can be easy to make homebrew stuff that doesn’t work. Stick to the rules until you understand them properly, and figure out what you can bend without breaking it.
He is wrong, and you are right. This is because you are the DM and everything that exists and happens in your game is entirely at your discretion. It sounds like you've brought this on yourself a little, since you've already allowed him to play a homebrew rules character.
You need to have an out of game conversation with the player.
It's tough to have that conversation, but he clearly thinks he's playing a different game to the one you want to run.
My advice to your player is he needs to read the rules and figure out how to do what he wants within the rules as they’re written. And it’s his job to do the legwork of learning the rules and figuring out how to get what he wants while following the rules. You have enough work on your plate as the DM.
Professional computer geek
He's wrong.
D&D has a specific set of rules and player options, anything outside of that is up to the DM to decide to incorporate. Unless you specifically agreed to add this kind of stuff for that player then they shouldn't expect to be able to add any homebrew material. And if the DM does decide to allow homebrew they are also going to do it in a way that is doesn't break the game mechanically.
If this was me I'd explain that this is a game, games have rules and limitations because those limitation create challenges to overcome. Without challenges/limitation/rules there is no game and you are just pretending to beat up monsters.
If they don't understand and agree to this, you just need to tell them that what concept of D&D they have in their mind isn't the game you are running, and if they want to play that then it's not going to be at your table.
If he wants to play a character with dissociative disorder then let him play said character. Just remind him that his race, class and abilities are unchanged. Tell him you are looking forward to him coming off as a lich to a group of townsmen when dressed in plate with an obvious human head, how is he going to pull it off without ending up in the towns sanitarium. If he wants to pretend to be someone else in the dungeon or around the party he can probably get away with it, but to do that in a town with peasants who have seen creatures become possessed, magic, demons and devils, and flying monstrosities -- he'd be locked up or killed almost immediately out of fright. Unless you are playing in a world where everyone has advanced degrees and would accept that as normal behavior.
He'll either treat it as a roleplay at the right time OR if he gets upset and flips out and quit, congratulations you just got rid of a guy who was using you as computer program to run his video game where he's the lead player and everyone else is his NPC's.
The only real way out of this is an out of game conversation between you and the player or players. You can't fix anything by trying to show the character how it works in game, you need to talk to the player.
First, the role of the DM is to arbitrate the interactions of the characters and their choice of actions with the world that the DM has created. The rules create guidelines for resolving this. When a player says that their character is taking an action, the DM resolves what happens and how it works. There are several possible responses.
- the DM listens and says that the action will require a skill check of some sort. The player rolls and the DM narrates the result.
- the DM listens and says that the action requires an attack roll or saving throw (usually when attacking - either in or starting combat - or doing something that might be particularly risky).
- the DM listens and says that the action described isn't possible
Interpretation of the character action is based on the rules of the game and how the DM wants to run it. The DM doesn't have to always follow THE rules but it is a good idea for the DM to follow SOME specific rules so that the players know what to expect when they describe an action.
It sounds to me like you haven't been using enough of the third option with this player.
"Splitted personalities giving him several different characters and stats, a puppet master who has his own personal neverdeath puppet (like an animal companion, but in a necromancer kind of way), a lich, a burning skeleton, a magic user with four magical arms..."
Just say no. You have one body and one set of stats. Just because there is an issue that causes your mind to function differently at times does not create different characters and stats (unless the DM decides that is what they want to allow - but personally I'd say no). The player is allowed to have wide leeway in making roleplaying choices but the player has NO say in what mechanical/rules effects those choices may have.
The "neverdeath" puppet could be a dolly which the character imagines has burning hair and mutters threatening words. Perhaps after reaching a high enough level in a class the character could cast animate dead and have an animated skeleton. Alternatively, a DM could customize the Find Familiar spell to create something appropriate. However, those choices are entirely up to the DM, not the player.
Anyway, D&D is a sandbox where the characters really can try to do anything they like. However, the DM adjudicates the rules of the world and should also make these rules clear to the players so that they don't keep walking around saying they will do clearly impossible things. The DM decides what is possible. A character can't convince a king to give up their throne with a roll of 20 on a persuasion check - the DM doesn't ask for a roll because the task is impossible - the character can never succeed at that task. Similarly, it sounds like many of the things this player describes aren't possible for their character in the context of the game world and the DM needs to calmly but firmly make the player aware of how the world works and what sorts of things are possible and what aren't and that your decisions are based on the rules and logic of how the world works.
The rules serve to bring consistency to the gameplay from one player to the next. They are a required part of what makes the game playable. If you, the DM, were to make custom rulings for each player there is an opportunity for a massive inconsistency to occur, and favoritism (or the perception of favoritism) will be the new rule that is followed.
If your friend can't understand this, then don't play with them. If that means finding a new group to play with, so be it. I'm all for working to make sure the party players enjoy the game, but I'm not ok with babysitting a spoiled brat who wants the rules to be bent to their whim, to only serve their character. If it can't be applied equally across the board to all players, I would suggest that you ignore it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Signal boosting this very important point.
Your player sounds like a Rule of Cool guy - "I have this creative idea and I want you to bend the rules so it can work." You sound like a Cool of Rule DM - "I have these fair boundaries that you can be creative within." D&D supports both styles of play, but it doesn't support them well at the same table.
I echo the advice of having a conversation with the player about how you run your game and what you can and cannot offer him. Ultimately, if he wants a gaming experience where he can make stuff up and homebrew a ton, he's not going to be satisfied in your campaign. And yes, while it's the responsibility of a DM to ensure their players are having fun, it is not the responsibility of the DM to run a campaign they don't enjoy just to cater to one particular player. Not all players fit every campaign, and not every DM is right for every player - even if you're friends in real life. And that's totally okay. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, as they say.
The rule of cool extending to playing something with multiple different sets of stats is not D&D - there are other game systems which support this concept.
The player does need to be told how characters work in D&D - and that they control one character, with a particular set of abilities - and that character will gain additional abilities over time (by levelling up, and/or finding new spells/items).
The abilities are limited by class and race - the description of each ability is given on the character sheet in front of the player - and expanded descriptions are available in the Basic Rules (free), Player's Handbook or other publications.
Some players don't like to read lots of things - but explaining the "limited set of abilities" will help them understand the approach that D&D takes.
"Rule of cool" presumes something is in fact "cool." Self-indulgence is rarely cool, and is often uncool. Where rule of cool was popularized, when you see it invoked, the player is going off something on an established character sheet and pushing a mechanic in novel, interesting, and yes "cool" ways, or asking for something character consistent that requires the DM to adjudicate "how we're going to do this." The problem player in this instance is neither of those cases. Rather than building a character and developing a character within the rules of the game, the player wants their lack of focus and attention to be turned into a "special" character who functions on the mechanics of "how bout I?" with no real rhyme or reason, literally begging the DM for accomodation of player's whim at the expense of everyone else who's, you know, playing the game.
An important part of the game is making choices and see how those choices literally play out over the game. Part of the game is not finding a limitation to your character and building up an alternative statted "personality" (though, that's not true as what's presented are entirely different 'incarnations' of the character, otherwise we'd just be talking INT/WIS/CHR, and let's not get into someone trying to make reference to what is in real life a "disorder" into a power up at the players control) that will remedy that limitation. That is not rule of cool. That's just b.s.
I was disappointed there was some weird applications of "both sides" rhetoric going on here. I was glad to see most folks do see, at least as DM represented the case, a clear party at fault in making the game problematic. Really, sometimes game behavior can be just wrong.
Let's also recognize the truth of the "sandbox" metaphor. There is "more freedom" in a sandbox, yes, but a sandbox nevertheless has parameters. One of the parameters is consistent character play.
Honestly sometimes it seems new DMs simply need what are sometimes called "verbal judo" skills to roll a player's id into a constructive role in their game. It's one of those DM soft skills, but it seems like the DMs who seek help in this regard need to recognize how players like the one outlined will continue to push and test to see how many game boundaries they can break.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.