You have already stated that part of your "character side" would be fluff that establishes a tie between the wolf-sex-thingy and the barbarian rage feature (i do not mean you tie that toe every barbarian, but you establish for this game a link between those two elements as a possibility) and to the extent that it triggers your jerk/irrational and intrusion position.
To me, that tie is a world setting and while as a Gm i would almost always be fine with it... i do NOT agree at all that adding that is clearly and distinctly a player-side GM has no say purview.
The situation is that at the precise moment when the *ahem*
genetic material left daddy's, erm,
body, daddy had
started to change into a werewolf for the very first time, but the change was not complete.
Therefore, the cause of my PC's abilities was the genetic material that was
half-way between human and werewolf; a unique situation. This is different from a 'father' who has already completely turned into a werewolf, because at that point the genetic material would not create something like my PC, it would create....whatever it usually creates in the DM's world! A normal human baby? A natural lycanthrope? An afflicted lycanthrope? I don't know; it's not up to me, it's up to the DM.
That is why my PC's unique origin simply does not tread on the DM's toes re: the results of werewolf mating.
In order for my PC's origin to set a precedent, another 'father' would have to be releasing his genetic material at the exact same moment as he was changing into a werewolf for the very first time. Even then, the mother must somehow survive what would almost certainly be a fatal experience. And if those exact same things happened and the DM didn't
want another PC like mine, all the DM has to do is say that it didn't work this time! Maybe it only worked like that the first time because The Fiend made it happen like that as part of The Fiend's long game, because he wanted an agent like my PC.
In short, accepting my fluff in no way paints the DM into a corner re: werewolf mating results, therefore it is not a valid objection to my fluff.
Look at the player rights section -
what I see as the player's purview (idea, choice of race/class/background already allowed by the DM, fluff to explain the crunch)
Thats pretty broad for the player side - only things outside the limit are classes/races/background already forbidden expressly.
Look at the GM right section...
the DM's purview (necessary adjustments to better fit into the DM's campaign, messing with the DM's actual adventure/plots/game world politics), as illustrated by the fact that the only thing I feel I need the DM's permission for is the 'Feywild time dilation' aspect because the adventure will be set in the Feywild?
See the bolded limits all thru the Gms rights? Any GM side purview must be necessary (not just preferred, but necessary), must be better (not just as good or equally good but better) and (i assume you meant" NOT messing up already planned politics world adventures etc.
You are defining a set of conditions which - very consistently to your previous positions I might add - seem to view the Gm as being the party which needs to be limited, restricted etc and the player to have a wide latitude when it comes to this "fluff".
What **seems clear** is that you still want pretty high degree of carte blanche for the player and very limited ability for the GM and a lot of tools to push back with (Justify how its really necessary? justify how its better better? justify how it messes with?) and that is a far cry from a collaboration especially when it comes to the ties between your character and the world.
Yes, that sums it up nicely. The DM controls EVERYTHING in his world....
except the PCs. The ONLY thing the players have is their own PC, and it is wrong for the DM to assume control of the PC (including the PC's backstory) without the player's consent, just as it would be wrong for the player to assume control of the DM's world when play begins without the DM's consent.
Lines of demarcation. The players get their PCs, the DM gets literally EVERYTHING ELSE. What, you want my PC too? Hands off!
Thats not a collaboration or chargen campaign process i would sign myself up for as Gm and frankly, as player because it really seems to set an adversarial tone towards the Gm. it really screams "we do not trust you as our GM" to me. First rule of my games is "this game will run very well if we trust each other. and play together."
The forum makes us all seem a lot more adversarial than we are in real life, because we are supporting our positions in a debate here, but in real life it doesn't work like that.
The forum makes it seem as though the very first thing I say to the DM is, "It's my way or the highway!", and it seems as though this is also the first thing the DM says to me.
But that is not what happens in real life. In reality, our
expectations are that the DM/player will
not be a jerk! Those lines don't get drawn in some argument, because there is (usually) no disagreement. Usually, the DM recognises the players right to make up their own backstory, and the players recognise the DM's right to make
necessary adjustments.
Disagreement does sometimes happen though. I remember one time one of our group's players wanted to try his hand at DMing. He told us all to make 1st level PCs and told us a bit about the world, told us which books we were allowed to use (3.5e; there were a
lot of books by this stage). So, I decided to play a warlock. He already said we could. In the previous campaign in which both he and I were players, I also played a warlock, and we were all high level. I wanted to play a low level one.
But he didn't like my previous character. So,
after I made the warlock, he banned it. He just decided that there were no warlocks in his world.
So that wasn't a good start. I floated several ideas for different PCs and he shot them all down. Later, he allowed another player to use one of these ideas for their PC
after he had already said that I wasn't allowed to use it!
That ticked me off no end! I decided that if his objections were that all my ideas were too powerful (1st level PC's, remember?) then I'd make a PC that
only used info from the PHB, a source that he allowed in toto. I made a 1st level bard based on Joxer The Mighty from the Xena TV show. He didn't know he was a bard, he thought he was a great fighter destined to be a hero, but in reality he was a buffoon.
In 3.5e, a bard has to choose what kind of performance he uses to get the pseudo-magical effects (like Inspire Courage which gives combat bonuses to the bard's allies). Usual choices are singing or playing an instrument, but there is actually quite a long list to choose from, including things like 'oratory'. One of those was 'comedy', and one of the example types of comedy was 'buffoonery'; basically, pratfalls and being useless for comic effect and so on. The way I'd Inspire Courage was to 'strike a heroic pose and cow the villains into submission' (read: try to act tough and have my helmet fall off and trip over my own cloak, and pretend that no-one else noticed). My party got the Inspire Courage bonuses from my bardic performance of 'buffoonery' because they were thinking, "Oh, gods, here we go again! We're going to have to pull out all the stops to get us out of this situation in one piece!"
So, I thought it was brilliant! So did the players! I was playing a weak PC so he couldn't object on those grounds (we didn't roll or use point-buy for stats, we just chose the stats we wanted. I gave him an 8 in wisdom; no-one had done that before), I was only using the PHB as my source (so he couldn't object on the grounds that I was using some obscure, broken splatbook), and I was using the rules as written, without asking for any special consideration, so he couldn't object on that score either.
He hated it. He tried to impose a Will save in order to choose my own actions in combat, but I told him that my
PC may be deluded about his combat prowess, but his
player knew exactly what he was doing, thank-you-very-much, and I'll make my own decisions for my own character!
That campaign didn't last very long. Why? Well, he wasn't a good DM, he was far too much into the railroad, and to be fair he lost enthusiasm for the whole thing and I suppose I'm at fault for some of that. But if he had imposed that Will save to allow me to choose the actions of my own PC I would have walked, friend or no, because controlling our own PCs is the ONLY thing players have got, and taking that agency away is the biggest sin a DM can commit.
Earlier, someone commented that they liked my werewolf-flavoured barbarian, and if they were DM they might consider letting silver weapons bypass my Rage damage resistance. Well, that's a clear nerf, but if the DM and I had a conversation about it and the DM gave an advantage to make up for the nerf that we both liked and agreed on, fair enough. But just nerfing my by-the-book crunch-wise barbarian, that's not okay. I'd play a totally different character first.
I know some Gms are of the "its my game and you can play in it" variety. I know i am more of an "its our game lets play together" variety but this seems to be moving very heavily towards "its the players game and if you are nice we will let you Gm it - with restrictions and a probationary period."
No, I see it as 'lines of demarcation', with the players getting their PC and the DM getting
everything else. Do you really think that this is unfair to the
DM? Do you think he should control the PCs too?
