D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

Imaro · Oct 15, 2018

Yunru said:
How's it any different from them dictating the rest of their character's background?

Wait are you saying that creating the stats, motivation, traits, etc. of their patron/deity is what you consider a character creating background for their character? I'm trying to understand the question because it seems to pre-suppose this is the case and I certainly don't see the two as the same thing.

Satyrn · Oct 15, 2018

Umbran said:
Maybe someone else got this in the intervening pages, but, if we are going to get pedantic, water is not wet. To be wet is to be covered or saturated with water - water cannot saturate itself, and therefore cannot be wet, any more than most people's favorite d20s are "covered in" plastic.

Ooh. Now I want a solid gold d20 . . . But covered in plastic so only I know about it.

"Dude, your d20 is so tiny. How can you read it? And why does it keep denting the table? "

5ekyu · Oct 15, 2018

Yunru said:
On the contrary, none of them should have to deal with worrying about "how do I get there" unless it suddenly becomes relevant.

I love how when i asked one poster about their gameplay you respond to contradict them.

5ekyu · Oct 15, 2018

Imaro said:
Wait are you saying that creating the stats, motivation, traits, etc. of their patron/deity is what you consider a character creating background for their character? I'm trying to understand the question because it seems to pre-suppose this is the case and I certainly don't see the two as the same thing.

You are not alone in seeing those as different.

5ekyu · Oct 15, 2018

Imaro said:
Yes but you're glossing over the fact that the player turned it down which I would assume means they want to play out the challenges associated with not having reliable "backgrounded" transportation. Which is fine and will give that player totally different challenges, adventures and perspectives from the one who did take it... Now if that's not the case why would they turn it down?

Maybe being eco-conscious is an important aspect of their chsracter and since not having a car is big for lowering carbon footprint, they turn it down. Not having a car is not a plea for "give me lack of car problems" but a statement of their character's strong devotion to being a low footprint guy."

Making that choice of a character defining trait or just a personal bit of background get them "lack of car" consequences is perhaps in some people's eyes a starkly different approach from the GM than allowing another character to choose to get a car **and** get it worry-free.

These are the types of differences one can run into when the GM decides some choices will have consequenes appropriate to their nature in-game but others can be chosen to avoid them by some meta-game method.

Some groups find it not to their liking, others dont.

My group prefers in-game.

Captain Panda · Oct 15, 2018

Maxperson said:
Once again, because apparently you don't get it either. I'm not talking about mechanics. I'm talking about fluff. Fluff is as ironclad as mechanics in many ways.

No, it's not. Obviously the DM at a table can rule that it is, and he can DM for an empty table, but that is not an argument that would find much traction in the overall popular culture of D&D. Fluff text is just that, fluff. It provides an example of what a typical example of someone who is part of the class would be like. The idea that a high priest can demand your cleric to obey... I'm honestly not even sure if you're serious. If you are, two responses:

1. Sure. The high priest can demand service from your cleric because the fluff says so. It doesn't say the cleric has to obey or that ignoring this fluff will have any mechanical impact. Hell, anyone can demand service from the cleric, and he can subsequently ignore them.
2. The fluff descriptions are not instructions on how to play or rules, they are flavor. You suggesting that the outline of what would typically be true of an archetype, such as warlocks having to provide periodic services to their patron, is as ironclad a rule is just silly. It's also immediately contradicted by the fact that it also states, as flavor, that if your patron is a Great Old One they might not even know you're there.

Fluff is fluff, it's not rules. Suggesting there is a parity between changing the effect of spells and the damage dice of weapons and tweaking class flavor a bit is just.. it's ridiculous, and it's very much against the spirit of Fifth Edition.

5ekyu · Oct 15, 2018

Yunru said:
How's it any different from them dictating the rest of their character's background?

Let me ask a question since dictate has multiple meanings.

At your tables as a player is it your understanding that after you are done with your background dictation the GM then has to approve the character for plsy in the game and might just say "nope" (hopefully with some explanation as to why its not acceptable)?

Or is it your understanding that in dictating you background the gm must accept whatever you put down?

Something else?

In most any game i have seen, the GM has the right to refuse a character **unless** they have given up that right by agreeing otherwise (some organized play or flgs store agreement for instance.)

5ekyu · Oct 15, 2018

Captain Panda said:
No, it's not. Obviously the DM at a table can rule that it is, and he can DM for an empty table, but that is not an argument that would find much traction in the overall popular culture of D&D. Fluff text is just that, fluff. It provides an example of what a typical example of someone who is part of the class would be like. The idea that a high priest can demand your cleric to obey... I'm honestly not even sure if you're serious. If you are, two responses:

1. Sure. The high priest can demand service from your cleric because the fluff says so. It doesn't say the cleric has to obey or that ignoring this fluff will have any mechanical impact. Hell, anyone can demand service from the cleric, and he can subsequently ignore them.
2. The fluff descriptions are not instructions on how to play or rules, they are flavor. You suggesting that the outline of what would typically be true of an archetype, such as warlocks having to provide periodic services to their patron, is as ironclad a rule is just silly. It's also immediately contradicted by the fact that it also states, as flavor, that if your patron is a Great Old One they might not even know you're there.

Fluff is fluff, it's not rules. Suggesting there is a parity between changing the effect of spells and the damage dice of weapons and tweaking class flavor a bit is just.. it's ridiculous, and it's very much against the spirit of Fifth Edition.

Just as a note... The patron not knowing you are there **does not contradict** the need to,provide regular services or fulfill obligations for the patron. All that does is eliminate and remove as acceptable some of the ways those favors and obligations are managed - the ones that require direct and ongoing one-to-one communications with the patron.

Maybe the patron doesnt know you exist but it does know the cult leader (warlock cult specifically mentioned as an option) and you get your requests from the cukt leader?

Maybe it doesnt know you exist but you see when you stare at the stars each night signs that tell you the nature of your next obligation - perhaps enigmatically for you to figure out.

***The warlock learns and grows in power, at the cost of occasional services performed on the patron’s behalf.***

On the patrons behalf does not mandate the patron being aware that you are acting so or deliver the service request directly.

I get some people want to read that statement as a get out of patron free card, but its not even close. It just limits the options you have for how the costs of services can be communicated and really kinda lowers your character status to the patron quite a bit.

The Crimson Binome · Oct 15, 2018

Captain Panda said:
Fluff is fluff, it's not rules. Suggesting there is a parity between changing the effect of spells and the damage dice of weapons and tweaking class flavor a bit is just.. it's ridiculous, and it's very much against the spirit of Fifth Edition.

It's against the spirit of Fourth Edition, because Fourth Edition was all about mutable fluff and mathematically-balanced crunch.

In Fifth Edition, the fluff and the crunch are just two ways of talking about the same reality. You're free to make up new fluff, of course; but you're equally free to make up new crunch, to go along with the new fluff. (Subject to DM discretion, of course.) That is the spirit of Fifth Edition.

Lanefan · Oct 15, 2018

pemerton said:
This is all just begging the question. I could equally say (and do say) that in thinking about my character's relationship to his/her deity, and whether s/he has a special task in mind for my cleric, I the player am the one who has to make all that stuff up. You are just assuming that because it invovles a deity it must involve the GM. The rules don't say that, and they don't even imply it.

Well, actually, yes they do.

A deity is not a PC. This makes it either an NPC or a setting element and thus puts it under the control of the DM.

Aldarc said:
I see the point you are trying to make here, but I don't agree with it. The decision-making is still present for the player even post-character creation. The social contract is still in-effect. And both the player and DM can renegotiate that through and outside play.

The player may have chosen a deity at character creation. But they may have done so under the impression (whether through their reading of the setting materials or what the DM told them) that their choice would engender one style of play experience for their character. The player could then be understandably upset when the DM seems to have conned those expectations. Or the player may have designed their cleric PC with their reading of the deity only to be caught off-guard by the DM's radically different reading of the deity or their arrangement. But in the imbalance of power, the DM's position becomes "the right one" for many, though the player was the agent who initially determined their PC'S relationship and agency with their deity. As far as the player is concerned, this is not what they signed up for. This is especially jarring because from an in-character perspective, this is something that they should know about: their cleric-deity relationship. It is a breach of contract at play. Or "that's a dick move, Eric."

You're making a bunch of assumptions here, the biggest of which is that the DM has somehow changed the parameters of this deity between char-gen and now (maybe even intentionally, in order to hose the player/PC); which I agree would be bad form if thusly done.

But if the restriction or parameter is right there up front and doesn't change, then we're right back to the player making a decision at char-gen and then having to live up to it later. Same thing with old-time paladins - players would choose the class in full knowledge of the severe alignment/morality restrictions and then later do everything they could to avoid or dance around such, and it'd be on the DM to enforce what was there all along...which unfairly makes the DM the 'bad guy'.

Yunru said:
Or d) as a player say "sod that" and do the other thing. Their character then refuses the Duty, using the 0th rule if necessary.

At which point there might very well be in-fiction consequences to that character. (and what's this '0th rule' you mention?)

Note: I specifically bolded the in-fiction bit to stop any talk of at-the-table or metagame consequences, which would be flat-out bad DMing.

Lanefan

D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

Imaro

Legend

Satyrn

First Post

5ekyu

Hero

5ekyu

Hero

5ekyu

Hero

Captain Panda

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5ekyu

Hero

5ekyu

Hero

The Crimson Binome

Hero

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

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