D&D General The Importance of Page 33

[Weiley31]

To those who say to accommodate players with an idea that doesn't fit.

So... would you let your players play Darth Vader/cybernetic Sith Lord? How about Winston/hyper-intelligent ape scientist from Overwatch?

Sure, but both HAVE to wear Top Hats and polka dotted gloves.

 

[Helldritch]

Ishhh...
I almost never accomodate players for "unallowed" races. Unless the backstory is great and suits my fancy that is. Even then, the character will be subjected to votes from the other players. This is mainly a matter of continuity, to avoid potential abuses and to make sure that characters are compatible to each other. The fun of one player should not prime over the fun of the others.

 

[Weiley31]

Interesting line of thought. So in our hypothetical no-spell-casters campaign, I can reskin my wizard character as a martial and use my spells mechanically as written?

You could reflavor spells into "Martial Flavored" text. So a Fireball is actually a sword/dagger/pebble that gets coated in flammable material, and your pc is so badass that he just round house kicks the flaming sword/dagger/pebble at the enemy, hits it for Fireball damage and the sword/dagger/pebble ricochets back to your hand and the pc auto catches it.

It's still a Fireball spell, but your just changing the cinematic that plays out when you cast the spell.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was converting the Mystara setting to 5th and I got people asking me to shoehorn in Tieflings, Dragonborn, Drow, Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, and other races that were not found in the original setting. It is a fairly unique setting that had its own races not found outside of Mystara. I was trying to explain to people that the non-canon races were staying out, I wasn't going to add them just because the Forgotten Realms had them. Then I found the one line in the PHB that explained it better than I ever could.

"The Dragonborn and the rest of the races in this chapter are uncommon. They don't exist in every world of D&D, and even where they are found, they are less widespread than dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans."

What you leave out of a setting is just as important as what you leave in. Dragonlance famously ditched halflings for Kender and was drow and orc free (with a few continuity errors). Birthright also ditched orcs. Dark Sun committed genocide on a scale none of the other settings can even dream of matching. Ravenloft retconned out its drow (for licensing reasons). These omissions didn't lower the quality of any of the settings.

Strategic removal of races can make for some fantastic settings. For the MTG crowd, Llorwyn had no humans, and Innistrad had nothing but humans. If you only allow elves, nagpa, halflings and aranea you get Dark Crystal. Tieflings, goblins, humans, and dwarves give you Legend. Lupin, goblins, sidhe, and whatever those fire guys were makeup Labyrinth. If you take humans, orcs, Cirque du Soleil lesbian hippie amazons and no talent for film making whatsoever, and you get Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King. You don't have to add everything to every setting, sometimes less is much more.

In any of those examples, if someone really wanted to play a grung or a Goliath or a gith, and was excited about the concept, I’d probably be perfectly willing to add them to the setting, if I could find a way to make them thematically fit.

OTOH, the cultures and related assumptions of the setting matter to me. I don’t like Elves in Eberron that don’t take into account the cultures and assumptions of elves in Eberron. Your people aren’t native to the continent you live in, your ancestors were enslaved by giants, and your kin have some degreee of hangups about death and ancestors, even if you’re a city elf.

When I had a player want to play a wood elf Druid in Eberron, it took a while, but we built her a culture in the Eldeen Reaches that worked for the outlook she wanted, and added something really cool that I’ll use in all my Eberron games from now on.

 

[clearstream]

You could reflavor spells into "Martial Flavored" text. So a Fireball is actually a sword/dagger/pebble that gets coated in flammable material, and your pc is so badass that he just round house kicks the flaming sword/dagger/pebble at the enemy, hits it for Fireball damage and the sword/dagger/pebble ricochets back to your hand and the pc auto catches it.

It's still a Fireball spell, but your just changing the cinematic that plays out when you cast the spell.

I'm going with - yuck

That's because I believe mechanics do have some valency with narratives: not 1:1, but some.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think if you have too many races they all just start to blend together, it's hard to have any lore, culture or depth behind a race when there are a couple dozen.

If they do so for you, then fair enough, but it’s not actually hard at all to have lore, culture, or depth behind each of a couple dozen races.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

GMs preferences are the MOST important. Period Dot. You can always find another GM now days. I seen too many GMs make compromises to get players. I have made compromises to get a full table. Half the time is not the initial session 0 people that is the problem but the friend of friend who joins six months down line. It is the GM's world. They set the tone, the high important parts. If a player does not like it. They don't have to play with that GM. They could play and like it. They could play and not like it to keep the peace of the social contract. They could GM.
Remember NO GAMING is Better than BAD Gaming.

I definitely wouldn’t want to play with a DM who views any compromise on their precious campaign vision to be bad gaming.

As Luke Crane once stated, as soon as you start a campaign where magic is gone, you'll have a player who wants to play the last wizard of the land. I used to believe that allowing a player to be the last wizard, the last elf or maybe the first half-elf was somehow demeaning to my campaign setting, but I've changed my opinion on that matter: settings are unique and supposed to be special in their idiosyncrasies, but this is also true of your player characters.

Sure, the most interesting thing about a world where magic is gone is to play the last wizard/bard/warlock/Eldritch Knight/ whatever. The most interesting thing about a world where the gods are missing is to play a cleric or Paladin (or in 4e a revenant Paladin whose power is the faith of the dead who have collectively sent him back into the world to find the gods and drag them back to Athas, or take the power needed from the Sorcerer kings to replace the gods.

You mean an oathbreaker paladin with warforged parts attached to his burned body, and an awakened ape artificer?

Or just a bugbear artificer!

I think it behooves the GM to offer alternates where possible. There are no Dragonborn in Primeval Thule (they REALLY don't fit the setting)

How do Dragonborn not fit the setting? You can’t have primeval Conan-esque Dragonborn?

 

[S'mon]

How do Dragonborn not fit the setting? You can’t have primeval Conan-esque Dragonborn?

Well, for a start Thulean dragons are basically animals, and a very minor part of the setting. It keys off S&S tropes not high fantasy tropes so a Serpentman would be far more appropriate. I'd be happier with reskinning eg a black dragonborn as an acid-spitting serpentman.

It's not a gonzo anything-goes type S&S/S&P setting like Wilderlands, either - I happily added dragonborn to my Wilderlands campaign. Thule specifically lacks many default races, including all the goblinoid types, and I wouldn't want to damage the feel of it.

More importantly, I WORKED WITH MY PLAYERS TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING THEY WERE HAPPY WITH. My son loves his goliath Rogue/Barbarian much more than he'd have enjoyed his umpteenth dragonborn PC.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The setting is part of the pitch, and that includes what races and whatnot are allowed. If you dont like the pitch, don't play in the game. I don't think anyone should feel obliged to allow X just because a player has a concept they like. If that concept doesnt work for the setting, just save it for another time. The setting should demand at least as much respect as player desires.

I agree, but on the other hand:

If you pitch your setting and none of the players want to use the options contained in the pitched setting, you didn't pitch it well. If you got players to really buy in to what you're trying to do and what's cool about the setting, then they should want to work within/alongside it.

In other words, if 1/5 players isn't going along with the idea, it's that player. If 4/5 don't want to go along with the idea, it's either you or the idea itself.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, for a start Thulean dragons are basically animals, and a very minor part of the setting. It keys off S&S tropes not high fantasy tropes so a Serpentman would be far more appropriate. I'd be happier with reskinning eg a black dragonborn as an acid-spitting serpentman.

It's not a gonzo anything-goes type S&S/S&P setting like Wilderlands, either - I happily added dragonborn to my Wilderlands campaign. Thule specifically lacks many default races, including all the goblinoid types, and I wouldn't want to damage the feel of it.

More importantly, I WORKED WITH MY PLAYERS TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING THEY WERE HAPPY WITH. My son loves his goliath Rogue/Barbarian much more than he'd have enjoyed his umpteenth dragonborn PC.

I mean, cool for you? I’m not challenging your personal campaign, so... Not sure why you’re going all “all caps” over it.

But yeah I’ve read the setting, and I just don’t see how humanoids that resemble dragonsare unfitting where lizardmen fit.