Arguments and assumptions against multi classing

[5ekyu]

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.



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!



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.
atDisagreement 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.

RE bad gm story number 12 - we have all encountered bad gms doing bad gm things... just like we had encountered bad players doing bad player things. i have never found jerk, irrational declarations or new rules and lines in the sand to help much - those are not "game" issues in fact and if you see this kind of bad gm proofing as something needed for your games to work - i think you may be possibly underestimating the ways a bad gm looking to "gotcha" can do so within the rules for normal play.



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.



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?

just a few points...

"unique" is binary. Something is unique or it isn't. You seem to be saying there is some third case?

if you the player under your "my fluff- jerk- irrational" rule gets to declare "unique" to a process in your backstory - then you have defined an element of the broader world - it does not or has not ever happened before. There are no other examples of this. not one, not ever Gm go suck it. M<y fluff and i get to call dibs and unique on this.

At my table - theres the door if this is deemeed by your to be out of bounds for the Gm..

If you get to say under your "my fluff jerk irrational" rule this process exists in your world cuz it happened to me and its not unique - then again you have made a definitive statement about the broader world and established a tie between these events and the barbarian rage feature.

At my table - theres the door again.

Now you can keep trying to redefine down the process key elements making ti more and more convoluted - first change, exact moment, under a full moon, within 60' of the seashore, both wearing purple, downwind from an orc fart etc etc etc until you get so silly in search for a third way to get near to but not quite at uniwue all you want but well before then you have crossed into the realm of construing background to fit your rule - which is funny thing often what some use to complain about minmaxers.

Second point of discord...

"DM to assume control of the PC (including the PC's backstory) without the player's consent, "

Again a strawman. Take the usual Xp for defeating strawmen.

What part of "discussion between Gm and player to reach agreement" and the other various ways it has been stated by me and by others leads you to see this statement as a summary or a counter position at all?

Two people working together to reach an agreement is not taking control or without consent. One side refusing to accept another's proposal is not taking control... without consent.

The part that seems to be being insisted on "without consent" is that you get to decide what is YOUR FLUFF and you get to decide whether or not the GM can touch it or not.

Third point
"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 doesn't choose your words for you without your consent. The forum doesn't take control of your keyboard. The forum did not make you choose to use jerk and irrational and insert without consent etc etc etc.

just like the forum did not make me say repeatedly things about both sides working together to reach an accord but that this accord must not start with jerk, irrational and so on.

And of course, there is a HUGE difference in taking control" pf PC choices in play during the game (outside the normal rules for such as in Dominate and fear and the like) and not accepting a backstory/fluff as unique hands-off at chargen. (Especially for one so very derivative of a pretty normal trope.)


Finally...

"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?"

i was trying to give the benefit of the doubt but you make it hard...

in this post you used "take control of the character", "without consent" gave a long example which spotlighted at its end down to saves to make choices in play for your character and keep harping back and then this final statement again with your overly broad use of terminology.

It really seems like you see Gm having influence or veto on backstory/background/fluff for a PC coming into or starting a game in the same light or maybe even equivalent to a Gm taking away during play the player's ability to make decisions for his character. If that is not your position then you sure seem to kep putting those two concepts side by side and then using overly broad statements that could apply to either and that makes it seem like you are leading towards that but covering your posterior by not explicitly stating it. (Some could view that as a intentional form of misleading - painting one with the other without drawing the direct link. Some Tv talking heads are absolute masters of it.)

But maybe in your case its not intentional and just another case of "The forum made me do it!" in true Flip Wilson style.

i do appreciate your discussion BTW... tho i think there is not much more meat left on these bones. You have helped me greatly as far as any uncertainty i had at all regarding the current or modern varieties of what passes for "player agency" and their value to my games or maybe RPGs in general.

 

[Arial Black]

Now you can keep trying to redefine down the process key elements making ti more and more convoluted - first change, exact moment, under a full moon, within 60' of the seashore, both wearing purple, downwind from an orc fart etc etc etc until you get so silly in search for a third way to get near to but not quite at uniwue all you want but well before then you have crossed into the realm of construing background to fit your rule - which is funny thing often what some use to complain about minmaxers.

The details were always there. They didn't evolve here in this forum. And you have yet to show how this fluff takes agency away from the DM.

What part of "discussion between Gm and player to reach agreement" and the other various ways it has been stated by me and by others leads you to see this statement as a summary or a counter position at all?

We have both expressed the same ideas about DM/player collaboration and agreement; we don't disagree about that part.

Where we disagree is where the line of demarcation lies regarding PC backstory, so that is the part I'm discussing. There's no point posting about the parts on which we agree, that wouldn't be an interesting debate.

The part that seems to be being insisted on "without consent" is that you get to decide what is YOUR FLUFF and you get to decide whether or not the GM can touch it or not.

Correct.

It really seems like you see Gm having influence or veto on backstory/background/fluff for a PC coming into or starting a game in the same light or maybe even equivalent to a Gm taking away during play the player's ability to make decisions for his character.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying.

If that is not your position then you sure seem to kep putting those two concepts side by side and then using overly broad statements that could apply to either and that makes it seem like you are leading towards that but covering your posterior by not explicitly stating it. (Some could view that as a intentional form of misleading - painting one with the other without drawing the direct link. Some Tv talking heads are absolute masters of it.)

No, that is my position. I'm not trying to deny my own position. No misleading involved, I'm straight out saying it. Consistently, as you point out. Why do you imagine that I'm trying to mislead? Is it because I acknowledge that collaboration is better than no collaboration?

But maybe in your case its not intentional and just another case of "The forum made me do it!" in true Flip Wilson style.

No, it really is intentional. It really is my position that the player makes the choices for their own PC, backstory included (within the range allowed by the DM, so no Star Trek crew as PCs in Middle Earth!), and the DM controls EVERYTHING ELSE!

i do appreciate your discussion BTW... tho i think there is not much more meat left on these bones. You have helped me greatly as far as any uncertainty i had at all regarding the current or modern varieties of what passes for "player agency" and their value to my games or maybe RPGs in general.

It's not new. Player agency has been crucial to RPGs since the start of the hobby. I'm surprised it's new to you. Have you really played all these years where the DM controls all the player's choices?

 

[Sadras]

Interesting. Has this veto been used at your table?

No. It is a new rule we had implemented some months ago, when we had one player who quickly retired two characters, one after the other and it was starting to annoy the group who had already made characters melee or range based and his new characters were messing with the tactical dynamic that had already been established. He even infringed on concepts.
After implementation of this rule, he has since stuck to his character.

 

[5ekyu]

The details were always there. They didn't evolve here in this forum. And you have yet to show how this fluff takes agency away from the DM.



We have both expressed the same ideas about DM/player collaboration and agreement; we don't disagree about that part.

Where we disagree is where the line of demarcation lies regarding PC backstory, so that is the part I'm discussing. There's no point posting about the parts on which we agree, that wouldn't be an interesting debate.



Correct.



Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying.



No, that is my position. I'm not trying to deny my own position. No misleading involved, I'm straight out saying it. Consistently, as you point out. Why do you imagine that I'm trying to mislead? Is it because I acknowledge that collaboration is better than no collaboration?



No, it really is intentional. It really is my position that the player makes the choices for their own PC, backstory included (within the range allowed by the DM, so no Star Trek crew as PCs in Middle Earth!), and the DM controls EVERYTHING ELSE!



It's not new. Player agency has been crucial to RPGs since the start of the hobby. I'm surprised it's new to you. Have you really played all these years where the DM controls all the player's choices?

Re the idea that you *are* equating GM vetoing or influencing PC backstory and Gm taking control of character choices in game.

The reason i was not wanting to expressly put those two toghether as your position was that it wasn't completely tied together *and* those are so very radically different things to me (and to my experience others) that it seemed out of line to put on you that extreme a viewpoint until you made it expressly clear.

i have never once met a player who would view " no, bob, i do not allow you to take the soldier on the run for a murder you didn't commit" backstory for this character into this game at all in anyway like "no, bob, Charlie your PC cannot choose to leave the room. Your character wouldn't do that." (assumes no compulsion or other form of "lose control" character trait involved.)

those are extremely different levels of Gm authority - to me and perhaps to many others - i think to literally every player i have encountered and have any significantly informed experience with.

RE the cute obtusy bit about player agency and me controlling every PC decision blah blah at the end - again you highlight a difference in our approaches. I dont need to portray those who disagree negatively in this case. I dont see jerk, irrational and the leap to "control all the PC choices" etc etc etc.

you choose to, well, likely another "The forum made me do it" Flip Wilson moment i suppose.

 

[5ekyu]

No. It is a new rule we had implemented some months ago, when we had one player who quickly retired two characters, one after the other and it was starting to annoy the group who had already made characters melee or range based and his new characters were messing with the tactical dynamic that had already been established. He even infringed on concepts.
After implementation of this rule, he has since stuck to his character.

The worst case of this i had many yarns ago...

was a supers game with a tigerman alien, martial arts mystic, sorcerer, sciencey guy armor suit etc and an agent secret spy black widow type.

game started with the launching of several storylines one of which they took to pursue was mystic themed.

spy player began to make noises and came up with muystic character to replace his spy with... i said Ok and that character came in at the end of the first story arc... so now we had two somewhat distinct magical types.

second arc they picked up on was the techno guy one and as it moved along guess what - the spy-now-magic pc player started designing a replacement cuz this new guy just wasnt as fun as he hoped and three guesses what his new character would be... yup - at the end of that arc he brought in his new techno-knight character just as a plot line highlighting the martial arts guy was... and guess....

yeah once i told him "you need to stick with this character or one of the ones you have had" the player dropped two weeks later griping how none of the stuff applied to his characters (none of which were active for more than about a month of sessions before swapping out.)

game continued with arc after arc spotlighting character after character's backstories and ties and eventually the team's backstory and ties and everything seemed just fine.

never was able to get across - carve your own place - dont jump on the coattails of someone else's current one - to that player.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Hi -

I think there's a piece of this that should be brought up logically. It's what agency means to a specific player. I'm not seeing a group discussion on agency.

Agency such that a single player is satisfied is fine if the player is choosing his or her own adventure.
Agency such that a single DM is satisfied is fine if the DM is writing a story and has no players.

In my opinion there's no such thing as either of these two examples when you have a group of players around a table. Agency for any player has to be influenced by all other folks at the table for everyone to be happy.

While this may result in individual sacrifices that may not suit any given player at any time, if everyone wants a long standing game it's the only way you're going to make it happen.

 

[5ekyu]

Hi -

I think there's a piece of this that should be brought up logically. It's what agency means to a specific player. I'm not seeing a group discussion on agency.

Agency such that a single player is satisfied is fine if the player is choosing his or her own adventure.
Agency such that a single DM is satisfied is fine if the DM is writing a story and has no players.

In my opinion there's no such thing as either of these two examples when you have a group of players around a table. Agency for any player has to be influenced by all other folks at the table for everyone to be happy.

While this may result in individual sacrifices that may not suit any given player at any time, if everyone wants a long standing game it's the only way you're going to make it happen.

Agree.

As I tend to say it "it's our game".

 

[Maxperson]

I know we fiercely debated what a LG paladin would/could do like many other groups. We did not challenge their LG status. But in my estimation both ranger and paladin had alignment and code restrictions to balance their considerable power (of course specialization attempted to change things as did 'cavalier' paladins...not sure what to say about all of that).

Just as an aside, but there has never been an edition of D&D that did not have paladins of alignments other than LG. 1e relegated them to NPC status, though the DM could allow them as PCs if he wanted. 2e had specialty priests of I want to say Horus that were CG paladins. 3e had paladins of freedom, tyranny and slaughter. 4e just allowed whatever alignment you wanted to play. 5e only requires lawful at this point.

There's no need to challenge LG status when that status wasn't absolute by RAW.

 

[Satyrn]

Just as an aside, but there has never been an edition of D&D that did not have paladins of alignments other than LG. 1e relegated them to NPC status, though the DM could allow them as PCs if he wanted. 2e had specialty priests of I want to say Horus that were CG paladins. 3e had paladins of freedom, tyranny and slaughter. 4e just allowed whatever alignment you wanted to play. 5e only requires lawful at this point.

There's no need to challenge LG status when that status wasn't absolute by RAW.

I don't remember ever seeeing that requirement.

 

[Maxperson]

So, given the thread drift, I thought I'd add my two cents regarding fluff and backstory and character creation.

In my opinion, and for my campaigns, NO ONE CARES. I really want to emphasize this. I feel like, woah, stop trying to make fetch happen.

You can't make your character cool or awesome or interesting because you define him as so. You can have all the written backstory of your character being the secret child of werewolves, or the King, or leprechauns, or whatever. Doesn't matter. Because characters are defined through play, not by all the things you can imagine happened before the game began.

Yes, it is great to have everyone invested. A background can help with the following:

1. Starting personality (hopefully, like in reality, the PC's personality changes over time and with events).

2. Why are they adventuring? What is their goal?

3. Maybe a hook or two for the DM.

That's it. We have a simple belief in our campaigns, going way back- time spent agonizing over character creation is time that is not spent playing. Creating a character should take no more than 20 minutes. The character reveals himself/herself to you in play, not through design. IMO.

It also helps with contacts. Going back to the wizard you met when you were 12 for information. And informing you about what the PC might know. I was raised near the wraith bog, so even though I have no applicable skills, I probably know more about wraiths than most people. And so on. I don't think a 12 page dissertation about the youth of your PC is needed, but I do like a background that is a half a page to 2 pages, depending on writing/type size and content. The players write it on their own time anyway, so it doesn't take away from game play.