Ruin Explorer
Legend
Yeah, but it's the key issue, and if he fails to communicate very clearly beforehand, anything that happens afterwards is 150% on him, and not on the players in the least.
I'd say that's missing the point.Seriously, though, I may just have gotten a little tired of the outsider concept some decades ago - it's a too-facile, unexamined, way of making a PC 'interesting' - break an expectation or even get an exception to a rule so you'll be 'unique,' and therefore a cool/interesting/special character, without having to put any actual thought into it, or engage in any character development.
That's an opinion, which is fine, but I feel like it's a rather unexamined and retro opinion itself. I've seen DM advice from the mid and late '90s which had similar attitudes, usually accompanied by outdatedly adversarial or aggressively restrictive DMing stuff which I rather doubt you subscribe to. It really does seem to me like one of those 1996-1998 ideas which was a reaction to the explosion of more outre and loose character concepts and so on from 1990-1994. I'm reminded of VtM Revised and the like.
In my own thirty years of DMing and playing, my experience is that most people who want to play characters who are technically outsiders to the main societies of the game just want to play a character concept they think is cool without any other motive or need. If they're missing the point, and I don't think they usually are, I honestly feel the DM is responsible, and has failed to make other stuff seem cool (which is on the DM to do). That's easily 70% of "outsider" characters, and it's why races like Genasi, Tieflings, Aasimar, Half-Orcs, and even sometimes Gnomes, Elves, or Halflings and the like are popular. A cheery country-bumpkin Halfling in a bunch of dour city-raised killers is an "outsider" in many campaigns.
Of the remaining 30%, I'd say only 10% (of the total) genuinely feel that they want to be "unique". Which is not "wrong" or necessarily "missing the point" (it totally can be, but again that's usually on the DM if it's the case, or the player being like super-dim, in which case oh well!) than a player wanting to be deeply embedded, but yeah can seem and even be a little shallow. The other 20% totally get it but just don't vibe with the main cultures of the setting, and so they have a choice, which is to politely not play, which generally speaking, the DM and other players don't want them to do (assuming they are friends and part of a long-term group), or to play an outsider to the setting. That's not them trying to be "difficult" or "unique" or "special" (we've already covered that group). Typically decent DMs are either capable of accommodating them, or have a re-think of the idea they were going with. Which works will depend on the setting.
If the DM is considering running some kind of Space Noble Teens at Military School campaign, and what he is thinking about doing relies on this setup, and one of his main group is just not down with being a Space Noble Teen at Military School, it may be better to ditch the idea. If the concept is looser, however, it might work well to have a PC be a servant or a bodyguard or teacher or whatever. I've certainly done both, and I imagine most experienced DMs who have run a variety of systems over the years have.
You can try and force yourself to play something you don't vibe with (which is different to "don't normally play" - often it's something you have played), as a player, of course. I've tried it. I've seen people try it. But my experience is that it almost always ends in less fun for everyone. Very occasionally, it does work out - usually with pre-gens oddly enough, from what I've seen.
