D&D 5E Bad Wrong Fun

[Oofta]

Y'know, this is one thing I have a problem with: The argument of "There are Monsters and then there are People, and never shall the two meet in the middle"

If something is able to talk, its sapient and therefore passes the test of reasonability. Making D&D a hack n' slash "We are on team Blue, we kill team Red" ain't what the game's designed to do

People can take umbrage, sure, but "Every single human everywhere hates those dragon-looking people who have racial stats for being paladins, but oh boy love them those small humans" has always been a dumb take and makes me go closer to the "I'm just gonna make an elven town who kill humans on sight for these exact reasons" side of things

You know what I have a problem with? That a player who wants to play a Drizzt clone thinks the DM should throw out all logic, reason and established campaign lore. While I don't remember the last time I used drow in my campaign they are the bogeyman. The monster that comes in the night, burns the village to the ground and disappears without a trace. Survivors are extremely rare but tell of coal black figures in the night torturing and killing anyone who fought or was too old or lame. The rest were taken as prisoners never to be seen again.

So a drow that tried to walk into a city? Sorry, they'd be killed on sight. That might not be a good thing, it might not be the right thing, but it would be the realistic thing. I do my best to base my world on logic, history and what I think would actually happen. People react to imminent threats with a fight or flight response.

If I made up a new world for every player and every campaign maybe it would be different, maybe not*. But honestly? I'd probably respond the same as the guy that wanted to run a half-dragon half-vampire. You can always ask, we can always discuss, but sometimes the answer is no.

*I don't have problems with monsters, even some that look vaguely human but I'm not getting into that argument again.

 

[jasper]

I get it. I really do. I am not saying these people should not play roleplaying games. Just that playing at the same table with passive players is not fun for me. For me it feels a little like dating someone who is not as into you as you are into them. Best to move on to people who are.

I am looking to bring a certain level interest, energy, excitement, and effort to play (on both sides of the screen). For that to feel personally rewarding to me I need to play with other people who bring it. I enjoy deeply collaborative play (creatively and on a game play level). For that to work I need collaborative partners.

.....

Well you are going have to buy me a nice $50 dinner FIRST. Before I bring my Barbarian out to play with you.......

 

[wingsandsword]

At the Table: Actions taken which infringe on the fun of others. This includes, but isn't limited to: PvP without explicit OOG agreement between players allowing it, stealing from the Party, betraying other party members, actively hogging the spotlight, or undermining party goals.

Between Games or Online: Telling other people they're playing the game "wrong", by using the wrong edition (I've received a fair amount of grief for still liking and playing 3.5 instead of 5e), by not using the latest errata, by using home rules, by not using some "build" that someone is trying to promote as the "efficient" way to play a character type. If people are having fun, let them have their fun as long as they aren't hurting others. . .and a LOT of the hand-wringing online, or between games, about the "right" way to play D&D is really excessive.

 

[aco175]

I find it wrong for DMs to not meet players partway with things. People may be in different stages of play and to just say no to requests strikes me as wrong. I get that some DMs have had a world they detail and model for 40years and it only resembles LotR since that what things were back then. I know I have changed along my D&D path and would expect some wiggle room in return. More training the next generation than just giving into gonzo.

I have limits as well with PCs which tends to stop at the PHB. If I played Eberon and they allowed orcs or goblins as PC races I may allow them in, but typically I have been playing FR. I know that FR or AL tends to have a lot of choices for races, but nobody at my table has wanted to play one in a long time- since my brother was 14 some 20 years ago. My son is now at that age and may go through this phase but looks like he is going to start the power gamer phase soon.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

The rest of the party should just kill him outright, thatd be "Great Right Fun". Kidding aside if this person showed up to play at my table with that attitude Id just ask them to leave and dont come back. Thats why I generally only play with friends and people I know to avoid this problem.

I generally am with friends too. I am always struck by how much easier this ends up being after seeing the game store horror stories.

On the other hand, there is a mystery about playing with random AL people I would guess.

in high school we played a fair amount of evil characters but we had a unite or die attitude since we were usually fugitives.

when this broke into pvp hostility it never worked. That was rare though.

anymore I find villains too depressing. I like my LN or LG PCs!

 

[R_J_K75]

I generally am with friends too. I am always struck by how much easier this ends up being after seeing the game store horror stories.

On the other hand, there is a mystery about playing with random AL people I would guess.

in high school we played a fair amount of evil characters but we had a unite or die attitude since we were usually fugitives.

when this broke into pvp hostility it never worked. That was rare though.

anymore I find villains too depressing. I like my LN or LG PCs!

I played a Psion in 3.x once who was I want to say CE maybe, I honestly don't remember his alignment but anyhow he was an insane, paranoid megalomaniac, but he had goals. I didn't set out to create a PC that would disrupt the party but I just played him as was intended. He lasted about 2 or 3 sessions before one of the other PCs stabbed me to death with a dagger when I was down to 1 or 2 hp. Honestly it was a fun character and I wasn't upset. In fact those few sessions I played the character were so memorable that one of the other players who was a bard actually wrote the "Ballad of Spooky Vlad" brought it to the next session and sang it at the start of the game.

 

[Mecheon]

You know what I have a problem with? That a player who wants to play a Drizzt clone thinks the DM should throw out all logic, reason and established campaign lore. While I don't remember the last time I used drow in my campaign they are the bogeyman. The monster that comes in the night, burns the village to the ground and disappears without a trace. Survivors are extremely rare but tell of coal black figures in the night torturing and killing anyone who fought or was too old or lame. The rest were taken as prisoners never to be seen again.

So a drow that tried to walk into a city? Sorry, they'd be killed on sight. That might not be a good thing, it might not be the right thing, but it would be the realistic thing. I do my best to base my world on logic, history and what I think would actually happen. People react to imminent threats with a fight or flight response.

If I made up a new world for every player and every campaign maybe it would be different, maybe not*. But honestly? I'd probably respond the same as the guy that wanted to run a half-dragon half-vampire. You can always ask, we can always discuss, but sometimes the answer is no.

*I don't have problems with monsters, even some that look vaguely human but I'm not getting into that argument again.

Thank you for reminding me of another thing I hate and loathe: Monocultures. The "All X are Y" side of things. Which is not, y'know, realistic in the slightest.

How are drow in your world always 'The boogyman'? Do they not have people seeking ambition by other means? Perhaps, say, money? Selling secrets off to the surface folk so one of their enemies gets taken down a few pegs? Or, heck, drow who want to see more than what's there? Wizards fed up with the politics and instead deciding that only by seeking out all arcane knowledge can they be content? Or, heck, rebels and the ever popular Dritz archetype, which is popular for a heck of a lot of reasons and unquestionably a strong archetype?

Don't forget the last time D&D had a really strong archetype counter to the established race, they scrapped and rewrote the whole race, and that's why Githzerai have a niche today rather than being 'i unno githyanki but less naughty words lol'. Popular don't mean bad, and honestly, the strength of the Dritz archetype is probably salvaging part of the flanderised mess that Drow were earlier in FR lifespans. The Dritz archetype made drow worth playing for people because it was a logical outcome to the Drow problem of 'Why would you actually want to live in a civilisation like this and not burn every single bridge the moment you can and go somewhere that's actually, y'know, reasonable to live in'

Logically and reasonably there has to be divide in a society because, struth, even eusocial things like ants have personality. Drow being only raiders and never anything more than that is not realistic, plain and simple.

Shooting an unknown person walking into a city when there have been no firm reports of them, per your own words, is a bloody reckless action. Arresting for questioning? Sure, that's sensible, reasonable, because you don't know who they are, what they're doing, or who they represent. Per the campaign lore you've presented here, a guard who shoots someone like this walking into a city? I'd expect their ass to be arrested because, well, can't very well interrogate the dead as to why this is happening, or where people have been taken to. Can't discover there's fractures in the drow society to exploit and gain a foothold to stop a problem if you do that, can you?

I dislike its wider thing as well. "All forest elves have this one culture, no matter where they live" is just as bad as "All drow are just drow stereotypes with no divergence from the normal". But, I consider adventuring and just meeting and talking and learning from other places to be a big thing in the D&D experience. Less Mos Eisley Cantina where stuff is just fancy to catch the eye, and more Morrowind or Final Fantasy, where you're thrown full on into a culture you don't understand and just have to adapt, learn, and get respect

 

[jmartkdr2]

But the DM is allowed to have preferences and opinions just as the players are, and is under no obligation to allow (or even like) everything ever published into her game. Saying the DM "doesn't care about the PCs" because she dislikes something is unfair...it would be like saying Bob doesn't care about the rest of the party because Bob doesn't like Fighters. ("But we neeeeeed one to protect the wizard and the cleric! Why are you being so selfish, Bob?")

The DM is also under no obligation to explain why they do/do not allow anything in their games. Demanding they do will only end in tears of frustration.
"Why don't you allow gnomes in your game?"
"What's a gnome?"
"It's like a funny little magic dwarf. They're in the Player's Handbook."
"I've never heard of them."
"Whadda ya mean you've never heard of them!?"
"Nobody's heard of them because they don't exist in this world, Bob."

Remember, the DM is an actual person who is also trying to enjoy the game. It's a tough job, and it takes a lot of creativity and time. "Let the players have whatever they want" is an unreasonable request for most of us.

1. That's a really annoying, passive-aggressive, anti-collaborative way to present he fact about the setting. It assumes that a new player to your table already knows your houserules and mocks them for not knowing things you haven't told them.
2. "I'm running an existing setting, and they don't exist" is a reason, although why they've been removed is still a relevant detail
3. I don't like goblins. Does that mean the dm can't use them? What about other players? Do I as a player have the right to veto them?
4. If the only reason you can give for an action is "because I said so", you do not have a reason beyond personal preference. But any dm that doesn't care about the fun of the players is - well, that's what I'd call badwrongfun. Not caring about the rest of the tab;es fun.
5. At no point did I say players can have whatever they want, and suggesting that I did is a ridiculous strawman.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So what qualifies as "silly"? Because I don't allow dragonborn in my campaign world. They've never existed up to this point, I run campaigns in a persistent world since before dragonborn were a thing. I don't have anything against them, I just don't want my world to look like Mos Eisley's Cantina.

That might be silly to you, to me it's maintaining a consistent world that makes sense to me. There's no requirement for a DM to cater to every possible playable option. That may mean I'm not the right DM for you, but I can't be the right DM for everyone.

That's not a silly answer to me - honestly a silly answer is "because I said so" or an equivalent. You have a tone in mind, and preserving the tone is a valid reason.

 

[jmartkdr2]

got to disagree on this one, as long as the DM mentions what he wants to change at the beginning, he has every right to do so.

creating a world is a lot harder than creating a character. If a dms world Doesn’t fit with your concept, then you should change your concept

Restricting players option just because you can isn't good dming. If you have a concept for your world then protecting that is okay, but you should have one before you start telling players what they can and can't do.