D&D 5E As a Player, why do you play in games you haven't bought into?

[Thomas Shey]

I think, ultimately, there's a continuum here.
1) Buying fully into
2) Buying into but not really 'getting' it
3) Not buying into but playing along
4) Not buying into and, in fact, buying against

1 and 3 work just fine. 3 might not get out of it as much as 1 because they're more along for the ride even if they're not an enthusiastic partner in the premise.
2 probably needs correction if it can't be accommodated (it might represent an interesting, if slightly tangential, thing that still works).
It's 4 that's the big problem.

I think there's some additional cases. You have players that are basically interested in playing, fundamentally, the same damn character (or one as close to it as possible) game after game after game. They will tend to read a campaign premise as supporting some variation on this character unless you explicitly spell out that it doesn't. And often, even then, they'll try to get as close to it as the premise will allow, and then constantly press against that edge (not because they're deliberately trying to subvert the campaign so much as "playing this type of character is both desired and second nature" and will default back to it the moment they don't think about it.

That's not quite your #4--they aren't deliberately trying to subvert the campaign--but it still can be more than just a bit of a problem on occasion.

(I personally think #2 is the much more common one, though).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Online play is awesome - it has several advantages over F2F. After playing F2F for 25 years I will now always keep at least one online game running. It is frankly awesome if you have even a basic level of computer skills and has been the only way most people can play with anyone other than their immediate household for the last six months.

I'm running online games myself, and have been partly running such before COVID. I think there's some technical/practical problems that some people are overly blithe about, but that's neither here nor there.

You and I aren't everyone. Everyone does not feel that way. There's already been one poster earlier in the thread who mentioned he only plays online grudgingly right now because of COVID. That doesn't seem super rare from my experience.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A moorish alchemist in a medieval Europe game isn’t incompatible with the setting though.

A high elf gloomwarden might be though. When the player complains that they want to play a high elf but the DMs say high elves don’t exist in his medieval Europe setting. So the player designs a character as close to a high elf as they can be and then refer to their elvishness while complaining vocally that their high elvishness isn’t supported by elven language, items, spells etc.

A moorish Alchemist isn't a member of the Church, which was the original brief. The DM has to compromise to allow that character. The point of which is, it's easier to avoid these situations by just starting at the most basic, and build the campaign brief with the players who will be playing.

Start with the players, not with the campaign.

 

[TheSword]

A moorish Alchemist isn't a member of the Church, which was the original brief. The DM has to compromise to allow that character. The point of which is, it's easier to avoid these situations by just starting at the most basic, and build the campaign brief with the players who will be playing.

Start with the players, not with the campaign.

Ahh, I didn’t realize Divine Musketeers was a real thing, I thought you just meant a magic 17th C France theme.

I start with the campaign, because we’ve been playing for 25+ years, have played 4 dozen characters each, and the campaign hook is what inspires us. Our players appreciate the restrictions. Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[Hussar]

I'd play in a different game because that sounds like crap to me; and I have a hard time imagining their arc is good enough to merit that restriction. That seems, to me, an utterly unreasonable restriction, and possibly stupid enough of one to disrupt. You'd have 2-3 sessions to win me over, but if that fails, boom. You are forcing values on characters that players (players, not characters) might have an issue with - and that is a course with risk.

But: as noted many pages ago - lots of people find themselves in games because of social ties in much the same reason that one's friendships and other personal relationships are network dependent.

DMs don't get to determine the values and beliefs of player characters by default; you can speak in generalities (this is not an evil campaign), but to demand that all characters are religious believers sounds like powertripping to me.

You aren't talking about limiting mechanics or classes or races, but specific worldviews and beliefs. That arc better be Hugo worthy.

Meh. Knights of the round table. Good enough for you?

 

[TheSword]

Meh. Knights of the round table. Good enough for you?

Or Samurai campaign
Or Freedom fighters
Or Pirates
Or Eldritch horror fighting Private investigators

All involve some form of expectation over character motivation or outlook.

 

[ph0rk]

Meh. Knights of the round table. Good enough for you?

Why can't a knight be a nonbeliever? There may be repercussions for being a heretic, but a heretic that keeps it to themselves (until they don't have to) just makes for a good story.

Also: Merlin was totes not a believer. Nor were, I suspect, Morgana Le Fay nor her bastard son Mordred.

If, of course, your noble knights castigate and ultimately execute heretics, I suspect you're actually running an evil campaign and just don't know it.

Or Samurai campaign
Or Freedom fighters
Or Pirates
Or Eldritch horror fighting Private investigators

All involve some form of expectation over character motivation or outlook.

Ronin.
Fundamentalist.
Merchant Marine.
Graduate of Miskatonic University.

If you want a game to be about a governing set of values, it's on you to ask if the players are in to that idea. Part of the task of matching the game to the players is on you - and forcing it on them leads to threads like this. If you don't have 100% buy in, don't do it. If you march in to session zero with a "my way or the highway" approach, you'll probably get some people that pay lipservice to the idea, but subvert it later. That's probably on you.

Might as well ban chaotic alignments, while you are at it.

 

[Lanefan]

I'd play in a different game because that sounds like crap to me; and I have a hard time imagining their arc is good enough to merit that restriction. That seems, to me, an utterly unreasonable restriction, and possibly stupid enough of one to disrupt. You'd have 2-3 sessions to win me over, but if that fails, boom. You are forcing values on characters that players (players, not characters) might have an issue with - and that is a course with risk.

That's a red flag to me: if a player can't divorce what the character feels, thinks and does from what the player feels, thinks and does; and can't play character as different from self.

It usually means that when bad things happen to the character the player's going to take it personally.

DMs don't get to determine the values and beliefs of player characters by default; you can speak in generalities (this is not an evil campaign), but to demand that all characters are religious believers sounds like powertripping to me.

If a DM did this for every campaign she ever ran then you'd have a point. But for one specific campaign I'd say it's a cool differentiator from the norm, and to run with it.

 

[Don Durito]

Or Samurai campaign
Or Freedom fighters
Or Pirates
Or Eldritch horror fighting Private investigators

All involve some form of expectation over character motivation or outlook.

Two things: A game in which everyone is a Samurai sounds like a fun game, but it's also something that you'd have to fight the system against in D&D, given that it's designed to be played with a variety of classes. I'd much rather use Pendragon for this (or of course for the previously mentiond king Arthur game) as a game of this sorts creates particular challenges and I'd want a system designed to deal with them.

On the other hand, I've never really gotten the whole pushback against any restrictions. Why is it such a big deal if I say no Warlocks in my game, but no one cares that you can't play a Vulcan? What you can play is always much more restricted than what you can conceive.

 

[TheSword]

Two things: A game in which everyone is a Samurai sounds like a fun game, but it's also something that you'd have to fight the system against in D&D, given that it's designed to be played with a variety of classes. I'd much rather use Pendragon for this (or of course for the previously mentiond king Arthur game) as a game of this sorts creates particular challenges and I'd want a system designed to deal with them.

On the other hand, I've never really gotten the whole pushback against any restrictions. Why is such a big deal if I say no Warlocks in my game, but no one cares that you can't play a Vulcan? What you can play is always much more restricted than what you can conceive.

Not necessarily - L5R in 3e allowed for fighters, rogues, monks, courtiers, shugenja and a few others to all be part of the samurai caste.

Though as for your other points, I agree!