Should the DM accommodate characters, or characters accommodate DMs?

[Haltherrion]

Both.

A player who builds a character without consulting his DM is just asking for trouble.

A DM who doesn't tell his players important information about the campaign is just asking for trouble.

I agree- this is a 2-way street. The ref needs to help guide the players about the nature of the compaign and what they may find more rewarding. The players need to give the ref a heads up and be realistic about where the campaign is going.

In a "real" world, those who like mounts, for instance, will gravitate to a place where they can use mounts, perhaps the royal cavalry or suitable horse country, leaving behind their less equine inclined friends. In a campaign, there needs to be some cooperation regarding the nature of the campaign or someone will be unhappy since game groups force characters together.

Regarding mounts in particular, any seasoned player ought to realize that they are often problemmatic in a campaign and talk to the referee about them before investing in the feats and such necessary to make that work. And if a seasoned ref has a neophyte player, that certainly is something to discuss with the player if you see them heading that way and you don't think it will work out.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, basically, we're back to dueling anecdotes.

Except, in this case, if all anecdotes are honest, it demonstrates that for some people, campaigns with mounts are not difficult. All your anecdotes do is demonstrate that it is difficult for you.


RC

 

[Rel]

Hussar, I gave an example above about a player whom I don't think it would be difficult to accommodate with a mount. It's easy for me to imagine that there are others who could manage the same.

 

[Mark Chance]

In a campaign, there needs to be some cooperation regarding the nature of the campaign or someone will be unhappy since game groups force characters together.

Exactly. That's why I want my players to make character creation a collaborative effort. I'm not even sure I want to define much about the sandbox before the characters are made. So, for example, if the players decide they want to adventure in hard scrabble badlands and make up characters with Survival and favored terrain (or whatever), I can then drop my starting location into the sort of setting the players want.

 

[Haltherrion]

For me, the main issue with mounts, as a referee, is if a player has their character expend a fair amount of "things that make a character special" in order to have a mount and then only gets to use the mount irregularly. That forces the player who wants to invest in a mount to give up a lot during the many encounters where you can't use the mount.

In older systems where there might be a skill, multiple mounted combat feats and a character class with a mount class feature, if they took several mount feats and were a paladin but only got to use the mount one in three times, it left them disadvantaged compared to other players who focused on more relevant ablities.

Sure, a player could just live with that but most of my players were not willing to leave that much on the table and mounts didn't get used.

I like the 4E system where there isn't a great deal of cost to using a mount, just the mounted combat feat which confers an incremental ability to use the mount. You don't need to blow skills and feats to use the mount. Now, with a low bar, you can use them where you can and when you can't you don't feel like you've been nerfed.

I had a similar problem with companions in older systems. The cost of getting the companion wasn't worth the companion. Someone had to really like the concept of a follower in order to bother with it. In raw game terms, it wasn't worth it.

 

[arscott]

That mounted character gets off his god damned horse and walks for a bit. It's that simple, and I've yet to meet anyone who actually plays a mounted character who has any problems with doing so.

See, even unmounted, that character can still stab orcs with a pointy stick just fine. Sure, the stick isn't quite as long, and it doesn't have the momentum of a ton-and-a-half of charging quadruped behind it, but it's still pretty good at making the orcs dead.

The only real consideration the GM needs to be making is to ensure that the character has access to his horse when the party is in that 50% of the terrain that is mount friendly.

But, that's the problem. If my concept is guy on a horse, and 90% of the time I'm NOT on a horse, then how is my concept actually "guy on a horse"?

No one's saying that the guy on the horse has to be mounted 100% of the time. But, a majority would be nice. It would be nice if, say, at least more than half the sessions feature me on a horse kicking ass, if that's my concept.

It's kinda like saying that it's perfectly fine that the wizard only casts five spells in the entire campaign. After all, he got to cast spells, therefore he's a wizard. He can use a dagger or a staff more than half the time.

If that's fine for you, then, hey great. But, I think most people who play a wizard want to use magic most of the time. So, the mounted guy probably would like to use his mount most of the time.

But magic is so versatile and "wizard who casts spells" is so generic, that the situations are not comparable.

Instead consider more specific archetypes like "Wizard who summons creatures", or "Rogues that can pick pockets and disarm traps like nobody's business". Neither of these characters is going to be able to do their thing all the time--in combat, when there's scarcely a pocket to be found, the rogue will have to make do with stabbing people, and when the wizard doesn't have a beastie in his repertoire of summons to solve a particular problem, he might just have to resort to a non-summoning spell instead. As long at the wizard pulls off impressive summons once or twice a session, and as long as the rogue gets to pull off some astounding skill monkeylizing in situations where stabbing would be uncouth, I think those players will be happy.

Similarly, I think the players of mounted characters should be perfectly content to indulge in their mounted badassery only once every few combats. And in my experience, such players are indeed satisfied with such.

 

[Janx]

Is this thread about handling mounts in a campaign, or accomodating players?

On the mount argument:

Yes, we should generally take somebody at their word when they say their campaign had element x and it worked. Additionally, this is a gaming forum. The point is to share knowledge. Saying you used element X successfully and not being willing to share an explanation defeats the social nature of a social information sharing site.

On to the Actual title of the OP, rather than the example:

Technically, the DM can do whatever the market will bear. He can dictate all the terms of the campaign and the PCs the party will play, so long as he has players willing to keep playing (note Game Conventions do just this). He could also be such a push-over that the players determine the nature and difficulty of each encounter they face.

The balanced reality is, a typical GM determines the campaign, and has more control over its content and adventure type and style than the players have influence for their specific preferences. A good DM tries to make a game that appeals to his players. Good players know to make something that fits in the game, because it is the game they are in.

What I tend to do is pitch game world concepts, the last time I did it, I gave them: a nautical D&D campaign where everybody is in the navy, a StarTrek campaign, or a Shadowrun campaign.

They chose the D&D campaign. Then I whipped up my game world and game hand-out, and told them I needed them to make humans that were all justifiably in the Human Navy (I had written fluff to justify almost all the classes and their relationship to navy service. The wizard for instance was a contractor from the Circle of Magic, as by military code, all military ships must have a Ship's Mage for communications and other tasks).

So I was very restrictive in what I'd allow the PCs to bring to the table. No mounted horseman (and I did have a Paladin PC). But the players signed up for it. And they accepted that I was sculpting the party for a specific kind of campaign, but that within that framework, they would have the freedom to grow and pursue goals.

For instance, as Navy offices or enlisted, they generally went where the ship went, and did what the captain told them (which was get off the boat and do a mission). Eventually, one of the PCs became a captain (we had guidelines for not being a jerk player in charge). The PCs could have gone rogue or awol, but that wasn't likely unless I made their situation unpleasant.

That's my example of "not being" accomodating as a DM, but having accomdating players who trusted what I was doing. I told them I had a specific idea for the campaign, that would place some initial constraints.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Is this thread about handling mounts in a campaign, or accomodating players?

I believe that the topic of mounts arose as an example of accomodating players.

Saying you used element X successfully and not being willing to share an explanation defeats the social nature of a social information sharing site.

Excepting, of course, that some explaination was given. Please don't make me go back upthread to quote people (myself included). EDIT: The short version is: (a) supply enough information for the players to make characters that fit the setting, (b) give players a lot of control over where their characters go and what parts of the world they interact with, and (c) allow the players to be responsible for their choices and the results thereof. In addition, there were some rules suggestions, and some notation about the level of support found in the rules.

@ your example: I don't think I would characterize that as not being accomodating. Quite the opposite, in fact.


RC

 

[Janx]

@ your example: I don't think I would characterize that as not being accomodating. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Correct. Which is as I stated at the end of my example.

That's my example of "not being" accomodating as a DM, but having accomdating players who trusted what I was doing. I told them I had a specific idea for the campaign, that would place some initial constraints

My point was, a DM doesn't HAVE to be accomodating to the players, but it can backfire. I had accomodating players. I also knew what t had, and used that knowledge to pull it off.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yes! It helps a lot when everyone at the table takes responsibility for making the game fun for everyone at the table!!!