Campaign Settings and DM Strictures, the POLL

[aco175]

So you're saying that I should allow things I dislike even though that WILL detract from my enjoyment of running the game, wich in turn will most definitely detract from all of the players enjoyment?
Don't you think it'd be a better idea if I simply limited whatever it is to start with & saved us all a bunch of frustration & wasted time?

I'm saying that you should at least think about it and try to allow it. If I say no because when I created my world in 2e days they were not around and now I cannot figure out a way to allow it, then I'm not doing my job. There are things you may need to exclude which is fine, but when a player wants to do something you should try to work with him.

If the DM came to me and said that my character is being killed because he does not like the concept or build I would have problems with it. Same with a DM that came and flat out said that the next campaign everyone is playing elves that get shrunk down to ride rabbits and defeat the evil cat holding the faerie queen prisoner. I may not want to play something like that for a year or more. I guess I kind of figure that the DM has so much to do and create with so much free reign, that character creation should be where players can have free reign.

 

[Jester David]

I'm saying that you should at least think about it and try to allow it. If I say no because when I created my world in 2e days they were not around and now I cannot figure out a way to allow it, then I'm not doing my job. There are things you may need to exclude which is fine, but when a player wants to do something you should try to work with him.

Sure. The DM should try and find a way to work the concept into the world.

But if the DM can't find an easy way that doesn't involve compromising their world, it's up to the player to accept that and move onto the next character concept. After all, if you can't play the character you really want... so what? There'll be other campaigns. Dozens of them. Save the concept. Revisit it later. If it's something you're passionate about, you'll still want to play it in six months or a year. If not, you wouldn't have been happy being locked into the character anyway. Find another one you want that does fit the setting.

Or even—and this might be dramatic and shocking—read the DM's world guide and make a character that explicitly works in that campaign setting.
Here's the thing: if you embrace the tropes and tone the DM wants for the world... the result is a better campaign. Because the DM feels the players are working with them and gets to tell the stories they really want, and isn't forcing themselves to make a campaign they don't really want to run. And your character is not constantly presented as an outsider that doesn't fit the world, but an integral part of the setting.
Ask questions about the setting. Find something that interests you. Find a goal that inspires you. A knightly order you can dream of joining or a quest you want to fulfil or an evil wizard-king that could have killed your family and you want to dethrone.

 

[Li Shenron]

Restrictions are recipes.

No restrictions is like having 4-5 cooks putting everything they want in the soup. It may work fine. Or you may end up with one cook putting indian spices, the second Mediterranean ingredients, another german sausages, and the last french cream. Which, who knows, maybe it's actually good, but maybe it's garbage. Restrictions, if well planned, provides a theme and can encourage players to try different characters instead of always the same, as well as making campaigns distinctively different.

 

[reelo]

Imagine you're throwing a party and you decide you want it to be a Bollywood-themed party (for the sake of the argument: I'm not particularly fond of Bollywood)
You hire a catering service that specializes in ethnic food from around the globe: they can make anything, Mexican, French, Italian, Lebanese, Indian, Chinese, Japanese....
Of course, for a Bollywood-themed party, you're gonna be ordering curries, raita, naan bread, rice- and lentil-based dishes, pakoras.... You send out your invitations, people show up at the party, and when the food-buffet opens, some guy complains that there's no sushi, no tacos, no french fries, and no falafel, saying that he's seen the website of the catering-service and that he knows they can make these things. What do you do?

 

[Raith5]

I think I am the only one who voted number 1.

When I play, I do so wholeheartedly by the DM"s rules and vision. But when I DM, I take the position that I will build a world around the characters (whatever they may be). I think D&D is best as collective world building exercise.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Imagine you're throwing a party and you decide you want it to be a Bollywood-themed party (for the sake of the argument: I'm not particularly fond of Bollywood)
You hire a catering service that specializes in ethnic food from around the globe: they can make anything, Mexican, French, Italian, Lebanese, Indian, Chinese, Japanese....
Of course, for a Bollywood-themed party, you're gonna be ordering curries, raita, naan bread, rice- and lentil-based dishes, pakoras.... You send out your invitations, people show up at the party, and when the food-buffet opens, some guy complains that there's no sushi, no tacos, no french fries, and no falafel, saying that he's seen the website of the catering-service and that he knows they can make these things. What do you do?

Maybe a better analogy is that one of your guests brings tacos. Then what do you do? Kick him out and stomp his theme-defying tacos into the dirt? Or put the tacos out for anyone who wants them and then enjoy the party?

 

[Jester David]

Maybe a better analogy is that one of your guests brings tacos. Then what do you do? Kick him out and stomp his theme-defying tacos into the dirt? Or put the tacos out for anyone who wants them and then enjoy the party?

Given in this analogy, everyone has to share all the food brought and each take a bite, I would question why my "friend" would purposely bring tacos to a Bollywood party when they know it won't complement any of the other dishes and everything will just taste weird and off.
If they're not going to bow to social graces for a small thing about food, would I want them continuing to interact with my other friends for the rest of the party? What else are they going to do?
There's an immediate lack of trust.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I voted #4, because I'm a firm believer that players come up with better and more compelling/interesting characters when they actually have boundaries they need to fit their ideas into. And quite frankly that only helps advance and improve their creativity in the long run.

When I create a campaign and an overarching theme for that campaign... I will supply the background, the campaign bible, and the "rules" we are going to be using for embodying the characters in the world. And I usually can tell which players have and which players have not read the documents when it comes time to start creating characters. And more often than not, if a player comes up with an idea that is not typical or standard or an obvious fit for the world... but they have still given bits and pieces of reasoning why or how the campaign world could produce the potential idea, I'll usually go along with them on it and see where it leads.

Case in point, I just started an Eberron campaign, and one of the players had seen on D&D Beyond the idea of a chronomancer and really liked the idea. Now Eberron does not have a standard place for chronomancy, and the setting itself has very little (if any) indication that time magic is a "thing" in the world. But the player also then mentioned that he saw in the campaign booklet I sent that aberrant dragonmarks produced weird, crazy, and potentially deadly magical effects, and that most regular people and the dragonmarked houses especially would fear someone with an aberrant mark because the magic was unknowable.

So not only did this tell me that this player had read the campaign bible, but he had put a little bit of thought into how chrononmancy might actually have a place with Eberron. And thus I didn't dismiss it out of hand. I worked the idea with him, and now he is in fact playing an aberrant dragonmarked sorcerer whose mark produces all manner of time magic effects (the "spells" the sorcerer has).

Counter this to another player who said they wanted to play a half-elf... one that was half-human and half drow... and they thought the dragonmarks were cool and wanted one of those for his character too. And when I questioned them about how they thought a half-drow would have gained a khoravar dragonmark based upon who the khoravar as a race were... it was obvious they hadn't read anything from the bible about who it was that acquired dragonmarks, nor where the drow originated from, nor the idea of the khoravar being a true-breeding race in Eberron, nor any character reason why/where/when a human and drow would get together to produce a child, nor how a character such as that would actually be a member of House Medani. Instead, it was more than they just had this character idea of "Half-human / half-drow!" in their back pocket and wanted to play it regardless of the setting they played it in, and heard that "dragonmarks" were a special magic thing that were rare, so having one would be "cool".

And that's the kind of thing that I won't just accept out of hand. That a player has a character concept that they've came up with outside of any game, and just wants to squish that square peg into any round hole they come upon. No. Sorry. If you had read the campaign bible you would see why "half-human / half-drow" and "Dragonmarked member of House Medani" do not actually go together as a concept within Eberron. You would go with one or the other. Or if you DID want to play both of these things together in a single character... at the very least you'd actually come up with and and present me the convoluted and pretty unlikely character backstory that might actually result in a character such as this.

But the player didn't even do that... didn't even attempt to justify this character appearing in this world. Which told me they hadn't bothered to read anything and see why this character concept is not at all a logical idea for the world. And thus I put the kibosh on it.

There are literally millions of different character ideas that actually fit within the world a DM is presenting to you. Pick one, even if it doesn't seem "original". Because guess what? You want to truly be creative? Take an idea you don't think is original and work it so that it becomes original. You don't need to be a quarter-elf / quarter-goblin / half-tiefling barbarian/monk multiclass with only one arm who saw their entire family and tribe slaughtered so is on a quest for vengeance against a group of people for whom the DM has already indicated is *not* a focal point of the campaign. You can be a human fighter member of the city guard and make that character eminently more memorable by actually being a direct part in the story the DM is leading you through. You can write down whatever ridiculous combination of things you want on a character sheet in an effort to be "original"... but that means nothing at all if you aren't going to roleplay it to match.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Jester David]

The best example of restrictions is always Dragonlance.
No orcs, no dark elves, no halflings apart from kender. No paladins, no sorcerers prior to a certain date.
(There are other examples. Like how Ravenloft is a dark humanocentric world, and having dragonborn running around break the tone. Or Dark Sun, where gnomes and orcs are gone.)

Some people hear those restrictions and all they can think is "now I wand to play a half-orc paladin and die in a fire if you want to stop me!". Why? Because they can't, and hate being told what they can't do.
Or they want to be special. They want to be unique, and the best way is to be the only one of their kind. The Drizzt effect.

What they should do is look at all the other things they can be instead. A knight of Solamnia, wizard of the order of high sorcerer or a renegade mage, a thinker gnome, a minotaur, an irda, etc.
They should just find something else that excites them rather than fixating on the one thing they can't play.
The the DM wants to run a Dragonlance game. And they're the one spending their weeks between sessions writing adventures and plotting the campaign. The one doing the work. (And generally buying the books.) The players just show up and play a game.
Showing up and whining about how the game they're playing at no cost and with no work isn't letting them being a specific combo is, well, frankly a little entitled.