Optional vs. "Optional"

[FireLance]

Role-players, I'm sorry to say, are basically narcissistic man-children who throw tantrums when they don't get their way (yes...this includes me as well).

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have edition wars.

I would be inclined to agree with that sentiment, however I am a petty man and I cannot abide stupid character concepts.

Thank you for providing an example in support of your earlier point.

 

[pemerton]

Nobody wants to play a dwarf? Looks like dwarf is "optional" this time.

Thankfully, these sorts of choices by players have made halflings optional in every game I've GMed for the past 25 or so years.

 

[mkill]

I would be inclined to agree with that sentiment, however I am a petty man and I cannot abide stupid character concepts.

And who am I as DM to judge that? I've seen stupid character concepts turned into awesome, and I've seen perfectly average character concepts ruined by mediocrity.

Whether a concept will turn into a great PC has a lot to do with player skill, and very little with the race and class they choose. On the bad end, an annoying player will be annoying whether he's a human fighter or an awakened black pudding swordsage. Sure you need to reign him in, but that's a leadership skill that is independent of game rules.

 

[wrightdjohn]

I've found as DM that asking players about their character concept is a great way to weed out the ones that won't mesh well in the campaign I am running. I've no problem with DMs laying the ground rules for their world. Race is a big thing. A good DM though will give as well as take away of course so there might be new races etc...

 

[billd91]

And who am I as DM to judge that? I've seen stupid character concepts turned into awesome, and I've seen perfectly average character concepts ruined by mediocrity.

Whether a concept will turn into a great PC has a lot to do with player skill, and very little with the race and class they choose. On the bad end, an annoying player will be annoying whether he's a human fighter or an awakened black pudding swordsage. Sure you need to reign him in, but that's a leadership skill that is independent of game rules.

Who are you to judge that? You're the DM! By allowing you to DM, your players cede you the authority to judge all sorts of things. You just have to pick the right battles to fight so that your players continue to be satisfied, make the compromises you need to make, and enforce the restrictions you need to enforce for the good of the game.

Over in another thread on whether or not classes need to be balanced, a couple of posters are relating "horror" stories of PC that, through their players' build choices, were one dimensional and ineffective outside of that dimension. Well, that partly stems from the attitude above - who are you to judge? You're the guy who's supposed to be helping the game work. You're the one who should be telling PCs that a concept won't work, that they need to pick up some better offense for their own good, that they need to work together with their fellow players. This is of critical importance with any game system highly responsive to player choices from point-buy systems like Champions and Mutants and Masterminds to class-based systems that nevertheless have lots of options like D&D.

It may well be that playing a leopard man won't have a whole lot of impact on mechanical balance nor on social interactions. In that case, it's OK to bend as DM even if you don't particularly like leopard men or think they're kind of silly. But if the player wants to stack up a paladin/monk/<whatever else gives out ridiculous save bonuses> to utterly redline his saves but leave his offense about the level of a toddler with a wet noodle, it's probably time to step up and judge and tell him to cut it out.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

When 2e first came out, there were no kits, all classes but fighter, mage, cleric, and thief were optional, and proficiencies were optional. But every source assumed you aren't limited to those four classes. Every source seemed to assume you were playing with proficiencies. And as soon as kits came into being, you had entire books essentially devoted to coming up with new kits.

Fast forward a few. Now we have 3e. Prestige classes were optional. Anyone checked the content of Complete Anything recently?

I'm not saying that I dislike prestiege classes or kits, I actually liked 2e's non-weapon proficiencies, and I certainly wouldn't try limiting PCs to four classes. But did any of those turn out to actually be optional? It seems to me that the moment you introduce a rule, it becomes part of the system. Perhaps because min-maxers see some way to break it. Perhaps the DM or a publisher thinks of a cool way to integrate it into the design. My point with all this being: modules. In 5e, will they really be optional?

You're entirely correct in noting that, in most editions and sourcebooks, later material assumes you're using earlier material, and that perhaps optional things shouldn't be supported, in order for people who don't use them to not feel left out or have space taken up in generic books with material for modules they don't use.

Flip that around for a second, and look at the later 3e books. Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle were quite popular among the fanbase, but new binding and shadowcasting material only showed up in web enhancements, and new ToB material didn't show up at all. Incarnum and warlocks got a few pages in Dragon Magic, but that's it. The wu jen and shugenja, nice fluffy elemental casters, didn't even get an official expanded spell list, just a suggestion in the foreword of Spell Compendium that you use your best judgment when picking out thematic spells for them because the designers couldn't be bothered. Teamwork benefits, something that every party should be clamoring for, showed up in a handful of books. Complete Champion only focused on Greyhawk religions--and only the core ones, even though many other Greyhawk gods were presented in Complete Divine. And how many books had skill tricks in them, again?

In contrast, every new book had cleric, wizard, and druid spells. Every new book had items, feats, or other perks relating to sneak attack. Sometimes it feels like there are more monk fighting styles, paladin variants, and caster ACFs than there are elf or dwarf subraces. The core material gets supported everywhere, while the scout cowers in the shadow of the ranger and rogue and the ninja resents the monk for his screen time.

It is in fact that very philosophy of "Assume everyone has core, don't support anything else" that lasted for so long before the devs wised up that led to many of 3e's problems. There are over 2000 spells in 3e, so yes, as far as your wizard is concerned, you can have a spell for anything...while the supposed king of blasting, the warmage, pales in comparison because he only has material from 2 books, the PHB and his own. Skill tricks and expanded skill uses (subsystems that would let rogues and other skilled classes take advantage of their tons of skill points and possibly attempt to catch up to casters in the utility department) and teamwork benefits and command benefits (subsystems that would let marshals, fighters, and other leader-y classes (A) mechanically support their theme and (B) contribute better to the team) showed up in a handful of books and disappeared.

You see the same thing in 4e, though to a lesser extent. Runepriests vs. clerics, avengers vs. paladins, psions vs. wizards...early material will always have more support than later material simply by virtue of being first, and if you deliberately choose not to support later material it widens the gap, making the new material less appealing and making it narrower and weaker for those people who want to use it anyway.

So no, modules should not be "optional" in the sense that they are assumed not to exist in later books. Either every book should have NWPs or PrCs or themes or the like, or specific "The Complete Guide to Proficiencies" or "Ultimate Prestige" sourcebooks should be released supporting them, even if doing so takes time and effort away from supporting core options.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Try telling a player who has gotten a whiff of a cool new rules-toy that it is "optional", and you, as DM, are therefore exercising the option of not using it, and see how that works out.

Role-players, I'm sorry to say, are basically narcissistic man-children who throw tantrums when they don't get their way (yes...this includes me as well).

Therefore, any player-side mechanic that is listed as "optional" in the rules, tends to become mandatory in the practical sense.

I would personally love nothing more than to have a D&D edition free of all the 3e/4e character-build culture, but I know that will never, ever actually happen in real life.

I'm not sure if gamers are really 'narcissistic man-children' but rather maybe people with many different ideas. I believe this is a difference in their preferred 'play style'. Sounds like you want a very plain & basic game (which is fine) but yet many players want lots of 'toys' (optional rules).

I think this is the root of much debate here, finding gamers of a like mind. Having players & their DM to desire to play the same style of game (& edition as well). Also I think this is less likely for established game groups, which started together with the same edition, and may or may not have changed editions since.

 

[Greg K]

Try telling a player who has gotten a whiff of a cool new rules-toy that it is "optional", and you, as DM, are therefore exercising the option of not using it, and see how that works out.

So far, it is worked out fine for myself and the gamers that I know. Perhaps, we have been lucky to have been blessed with mature players without entitlement issues.

This does not mean that optional rules never get used. It just means that the players accept that the DM can set limits and don't throw "hissy fits" when the DM does not allow a particular supplement or element from a supplement (or even core).

 

[mkill]

[MENTION=44640]bill[/MENTION] D: I haven't seen that kind of problem in a game I run in, I don't know, a decade. Could be that in my area players tend to be late 20ies to mid 30ies, and the casual type just in it for a few hours away from work, wife and maybe kids. I just don't need to tell them how to run their PCs. If someone's a flake, it's easier to just remove them from the group than deal with the crap in-game.

Sure, sometimes someone is new to a system or to busy to read all the stuff. In that case, I sit down with the player and walk them through the options. But that's about what they want, not what I want.

 

[BobTheNob]

It doesnt matter what game we have played, there was always the "one book" that came out, was ill conceived and saw player tearing it apart for every legal, game destroying facet they can get their hands on.

I learned early that as a DM that wishes his game to keep working, he has to have a period of review for any new material. Its not being dogmatic, its just common sense.

Of course, alot of this comes down to maturity. Do your players scan material for the next thing they can use to break the game, or do they scan the material for thing that would break the game so they aid the DM in finding a way to not let that happen. Pray your players are the latter.