DM Entitlement...

[Mercule]

Technically, I said that hating dragonborn so much that including them in a campaign would ruin your enjoyment of DMing the campaign might be an indication of a personal problem you should sort out on your own rather than inflict upon your friends. You added a lot of the rest.

How about this: Aside from the fact that I have an established setting that really doesn't have anywhere the dragonborn could have been hiding for the last 2000 years, I don't like PCs with breath weapons.

If a player can come up with a suitable replacement ability, I'd consider finding a place for a dragonborn character. I might also recommend playing a hobgoblin, as one nation of hobgoblins IMC has a very similar back story (honorable, collapsed empire; desert-dwelling; warriors) to the dragonborn.

I also don't allow dragon shamans (from 3.5 PHB2) because I don't like PCs with breath weapons. I might, if I were running Eberron, but they don't fit the flavor of my home brew setting (which, oddly enough, reflects my general preferences in fantasy).

Am I a nutter or not?

 

[Fenes]

Oh, no, not at all. Again, this is all stuff you've added to the conversation.

I do think, however, that some degree of deference should be given to the player when it comes to his own character. Again, we're dealing with my "sense of proportion" critique here- while having dragonborn in the setting might annoy a DM who doesn't like dragonborn, its unlikely that most people would have enough rage against dragonborn in them that merely DMing a setting that includes dragonborn would bother them to the same extent that a player would typically be bothered by being denied the ability to play the character he wants, especially when the reasoning for that denial is sheer hate-on from the DM, rather than anything about making the game better.

In your case, you've got an established campaign setting and you don't want to retcon it. That's fine. Even without your hatred of dragonborn, I would accept that if I were a player in your game.

But as for banning things simply because you do not like them, then using the elaborate apologetics found in this thread to justify it? It doesn't... it doesn't ring true or sincere. I have genuine difficulty believing that someone could hate dragonborn so much that they can't envision the idea of compromising and permitting a dragonborn pc in their campaign. Wouldn't such a person also be incapable of playing in a campaign where someone else was playing a dragonborn? Shouldn't we be seeing threads where players express similar sentiments?

But of course we don't. Because players have less of a sense of entitlement about their pet peeves being accommodated, even in contexts where they, not the DMs, are the ones interacting directly with the disliked subject matter. Contexts like character creation, for example.

Your hint that 3 am lieing aside, Character generation is an activity where my group gets into as a group - including veto rights. Part of our social contract is avoiding to create a PC that ruins the fun of the others. So, yes, a player is entitled not to suffer akender in the party too, if push comes to the shove and no compromise can be reached.

 

[Scribble]

Interestingly enough, without that second statement (implied or otherwise), the first has little weight.

In a perfect world, when the DM says "I don't want X because I don't like it," the players say, "OK", and that is the end of it. However, people seldom find themselves in a perfect world, and often one has to make a decision between having the thing one doesn't like (or not having the thing one does like), and playing in a given game.

Do you honestly feel the only way to achieve a particular objective is through threats or ultimatums?

This again seems alien to me. An example from one of my longest running campaigns after a play'er character had died. It was an "epic story" style campaign so we rarely if ever brought people back from the dead the player was makign a new character.

"Hey, I'm thinking I want to go with something different this time... I want to make a 1/2 demon."

"Eh... I'd rather you didn't. The places you're in right now a 1/2 demon would kind of stick out... I'm not really feeling the idea of having to account for that all the time."

"Ah, that's cool, I can do something else."

No ultimatums, no threats, no demands... Just two people sharing their thoughts on what's best for the game.

A year or so later in the same campaign, higher level. The group had "split" into two... The evil characters and the good, (asame group two sets of characters alternating on a semi weekly basis.) Another character a cleric of vangal had died... But now he had a resurection cast on him by the paryy druid:

"Hey J, instead of the random roll, can I make a centaur?"

"Probably not. "

"Here's my thoughts: Ok, so I'm getting to the point where I want to challenge Vangal's high priest to the right to lead his church, and I thought what if when sending me back, Vangal saw somethign in me, and "blessed" me with a new form... His church are the mad horsemen right? I'd litterally be a "Horse man..." and I'm hight enough level to account for the LA anyway..."

"Actually that sounds pretty cool... Let's roll with it."


Again... no ultimatums, threats or demands... Two people, with the goal of having fun rationally discussing their thoughts.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

In your case, you've got an established campaign setting and you don't want to retcon it. That's fine. Even without your hatred of dragonborn, I would accept that if I were a player in your game.

But as for banning things simply because you do not like them, then using the elaborate apologetics found in this thread to justify it? It doesn't... it doesn't ring true or sincere.

As a DM I only tend to ban those things that do not, for whatever reason, thematically fit the setting. However, there are times when I simply have not liked a race concept. In fact, in most instances the races found in books like Frostburn and the Book of Vile Darkness never saw the light of day in my campaign. Just didn't like them. They just felt wrong somehow.

None of these bizarre new races are potent archetypes within fantasy, none have the resonance of myth surrounding them. In fact most of the races figuring in WoTC splatbooks were added because the writer liked the concept. I would never expect the author of a book to have my campaign's best interests at heart but by the same token, I, as DM, should not be expected to include a race just because it was created by James Wyatt, Bruce Cordell, Rich Baker, Monte Cook, etc. because my taste is different from theirs as yours is from mine.

I think if we look at races as batches of numbers that exist prior to the fluff that is added to them we can see that in most instances any not overly specialized character concept can work with any race. There is nothing you can't do with a lizardman that you can with a dragonborn unless one is fixated on the math. IME it is the player wanting a mechanical advantage that wants a "unique" character concept that will fit with no other pre-existing race.

Despite their popularity I have always loathed half-dragons and wanted no part of 3e's "dragons will do anything anytime anywhere" theme. Dragons in my game have always mated with dragons and though there are some magical dragon hybrids they are more rare than dragons themselves. IMC, sorcerers aren't dragonblooded but either blessed or tainted by the blood of celestials or infernal races respectively. Too much of anything cheapens it.

Here's a viceral loathing of mine....the name tiefling....gods do I detest it. IMO you cannot get a name that fits less with a concept (yeah I know there is some German root to it, but it still sounds awful IMO). I just call them something else. I don't play 4e but I wouldn't ever let those straight out of hell central casting abominations in my game not without a 2e makeover.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Mallus]

Because sometimes, that single thing causes wide changes to the whole setting...

Well, only if you let it.

Consider as an example a player wanting to play a jedi in a Forgotten Realms campaign.

Ouch. I supposed I asked for this.

...the assumption that "somewhere out there, there is the galaxy, full of space ships, and the force, and hyperspace", and the conclusion that the force also works on the realms, and technology such as spaceships would work, would ruin the setting...

Hong has a law for this. It's a good one.

- especially if the player also expects to use class abilities that "summon" other star wars friends, i.e. wants his background to show up in game.

At this point we're no longer talking about the same thing. A lone Jedi in the Realms, as groan-inducing as that may be, is a far cry from running a full-on merged FR/Stars Wars mash-up. It's a matter of degree.

Consider a player who wants to play a christian priest in the Realms.

Now this is a more interesting example.

He doesn't want to play a cleric following a realms god, he wants to play a cleric following God. The one true god.

Personally, I'd be fine with this (so long as it didn't offend a member of my group, which, considering my group, is patently impossible).

He expects the DM to change the setting so that his god is the one god, and the rest are false gods, since his background demands it. And he expects to be able to convert the masses and start a church.

My problem with this is that the player wants the outcome to be a foregone conclusion. That's wouldn't be interesting for me to run, I'd have nothing to work with. A player that wants to introduce troubling cosmological questions via their PC --say like the falsehood of my established pantheon-- and is willing to play out the answering of those questions would always welcome in one of my games.

In fact, I'd guarantee them the eventual church and following, seeing it ups the stakes, makes things more interesting. Hell, I might retcon the whole cosmology, depending on how the in-game events unfold...

I think a situation like that would lead to some interesting, exciting play. Which is my primary goal (and I say this as an inveterate world-builder. Would you like me to pimp my new homebrew? I think I've managed not to do that this thread... oops... damn).

Can you see where I come from? I am not talking or ranting about a player wanting to play an exotic character, I am talking about a player demanding massive changes to the setting and genre just so he can play his concept perfectly.

Yes. I do. But I think you're inventing the 'perfectly unreasonable' player in your examples. I couldn't work with that chap either, and I try to be the very soul of compromise behind the screen.

 

[Spatula]

Ok, first: There is a huge difference between a job, and a leisuretime activity with one's friends...

The boss-employee relationship does not fall under "any other social context"? There are lots of social contexts...

This is very odd to me... I have a group of friends. We do things together. Sometimes we come up with an idea "Let's go skiing!" We then talk about our options. "let's go to Colorado!" "How about Whistler?" "Well... Taho would be better on my wallet..." etc... We eventually come up with the best idea that allows our group of friends to do a fun activity together...

Never once would we ever consider one of our group saying something like: "Tomorrow we ski. We will go to Whistler. Anyone who objects can go elsewhere...."

That's just odd.

You keep repeating this strange rude situation, which completely ignores the context.

Everyone is already friends. Or at least everyone is engaged in an activity that they all enjoy together. I'm going to dispense with the stupid metaphors, but everyone is already on-board with what the group is doing, whether it be playing D&D as a hack-n-slash game, skiiing, or whatever. No one is dictating what everyone else is doing. Your tastes are already mostly aligned. No one is threatening, "if you don't like it, do something else." There is no need to - it's all implied and understood. There are unconscious currents in all social situations that are rarely if ever vocalized - giving voice to them is often considered rude, even.

This changes when a new person enters the group. That person is either on board with the group's style, in which they will probably hang around; or he's not, and he will leave. No one needs to tell him to leave. No one says, "If you don't like it, get out." It's already understood by everyone that if the new person doesn't fit it, he or she won't stay.

The other situation is a group of strangers meet for the first time. One or more people are going to step forward and attempt to assert leadership to better direct the group's actions. People who have a problem with the subsequent decision making will leave, those that don't will be inclined to stick around. Without actually ever talking about it explicitly.

 

[grickherder]

And, as a side note, I'd do it to any DM who tried it on me. If the only reason that you're banning something is due to your own aesthetic issues and nothing else, and you cannot be swayed from that, I'm going to gank your players and start my own group.

That's disgusting behaviour. A thousand times worse than a DM not wanting something in his game and not giving reasons that satisfy you. Breaking up a group? Trying to convince people not to play with that guy and play with you instead? That is truly immature behavior of a magnitude far greater than what the DM did by not satisfying your demands for a decision being more than an aestheic issue.

Just think what you are saying. That you'd try to disrupt play and bring a game to an end just because the DMs reasons didn't satisfy you. Why is your desire to have a satisfying reason or a DM that changes his mind more important than the desires of the other players or the DM? To the point where you'd intentionally try to bring the game to an end and "gank" the players to play in your own group? Truly selfish. Worse than a DM who won't budge out of selfishness.

 

[El Mahdi]

In Yoda Voice: "I'm the Dungeon Master. I have absolute power!" - from E.T.: The Extraterrestrial

Spielberg said it, therefore it's true. End of arguments?!

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Do you honestly feel the only way to achieve a particular objective is through threats or ultimatums?

I don't understand, the portion of RC's post that you quoted nowhere mentions threats or ultimatums. It acknowledges that players have the option not to play, and so does the DM. Yes, in a perfect world, every collection of gamers would find some compromise that would make everybody happy. But if a DM is faced with a player whose preferences are intolerable (dual wielding Drow ranger?), he or she is not obligated to accommodate that player. Yes, ideally the DM doesn't respond immediately with an ultimatum or threat, but if no common ground can be found (with, for example, an intended urban Eberron campaign featuring more investigation than hack-and-slash), it's perfectly reasonable for the DM to say, "This may not be the campaign for you." I would say that this DM is entirely reasonable, even though in the end the response boils down to: "I don't like drow PCs, and if my ruling is unacceptable to you, you are free to find another game."

Do you honestly feel that this exchange is unreasonable?

Yes, we all realize that DMs should not be jerks, but it's possible to say no without being a jerk.

 

[Mercule]

As a DM I only tend to ban those things that do not, for whatever reason, thematically fit the setting. However, there are times when I simply have not liked a race concept. In fact, in most instances the races found in books like Frostburn and the Book of Vile Darkness never saw the light of day in my campaign. Just didn't like them. They just felt wrong somehow.

This triggered a thought. How many races would a world have to have before it became overwhelming? Three+ races of dwarves, six+ of elves, orcs, three goblinoids, goliaths, kobolds, gnomes, tieflings, dragonborn, elan, genasi, yuan-ti, shades, half-giants, thri-kreen, githyanki, githzerai, dromites, gnolls, and a host of others.

I really don't want to play in a setting where all of those exist as significant entities. Just like any other story form, a D&D setting needs to pick a scope and theme and focus on it. I can see the peace, harmony, and equality between races as an aspect of a given campaign, but that needs an even tighter focus. Really, when elves act just like humans, there's no need for elves.

Anyway, that meandered a bit. The point is that DMs need to be able to limit choices some just to avoid clutter.