D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Shardstone]

Yeah I was deadass, the campaign starts tonight lmao. I even did a little blog series on the setting I built from it. The Marquisat

 

[Crit]

Crit is using the well known, well worn, and dead horse method of not getting the clue. By lots of response and lots of words but it basically boils down to.
1. They don't like the idea that others thing DM Agency is Greater than Player agency.
2. They like to debate.
3. Would not be a good fit at some of our tables.
4. Never mind it would be name calling.

1. I'm not doing that, and if that was your takeaway, I urge you to reconsider. I do not want to repeat myself again, so I'm not going to.
2. I don't, I just intervene when people make statements from flawed positions. It takes two for arguments to happen, I would prefer not to take the entirety of the blame.
3. I agree.
4. Who'd I call a name? This I'd like a citation on, specifically.

I believe my argument is rather uncontroversial. I apologize if I have miscommunicated anything, or if I misinterpreted anyone, but I do not believe this is the case, especially not to the extent that you portray it to be.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah I was deadass, the campaign starts tonight lmao. I even did a little blog series on the setting I built from it. The Marquisat

I don't think I could ever turn down a campaign pitch that uses both dreampunk AND utilitarianism!

 

[Azzy]

The DM is the final arbiter of their campaign.

Who is right or wrong comes down to the DM making the final determination.

Sort of. A gaming group needs everyone's buy-in—both the DM and the players. If a DM doesn't have the players' buy-in, they'll need to find other players to DM for. Likewise, if the players don't have the DM's buy-in, they'll need to find a new DM. This whole "master and servant" relationship paradigm that gets bandied about so often is both unhealthy and frustrating.

D&D (like other RPGs) is a collaborative, social game that requires the entire group's consent and buy-in. The goal of D&D, like any other game, is for all of the participants to have fun and enjoy themselves, so a perspective DM needs to know their group and craft a campaign that everyone (including the DM) will enjoy. This will inevitable require compromise on everyone's part. And that's okay—that's how a healthy social group works, anyway.

 

[MGibster]

This is so odd to me that it needs to continue to be written.

I know what's written. But what's written and what's practiced are sometimes not the same. i.e. It doesn't change that I feel some pressure to allow players to pick any race they wish to play.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Crit is using the well known, well worn, and dead horse method of not getting the clue. By lots of response and lots of words but it basically boils down to.
1. They don't like the idea that others thing DM Agency is Greater than Player agency.

More accurately I suspect they know that DM agency is greater than player agency. They don't like DMs rubbing it in peoples' faces by controlling not only the world but who the players' characters can be other than for major reasons when they have the rest of the gameworld to play with.

"My game pitch is this game with this theme and that's why the world is tightly constructed round these concepts" works. But "Because I'm DM this is MY setting and I created it and I didn't leave any room for YOUR ideas" is pretty close to "So you killed my BBEG with a lucky crit. Well I'm DM and I say that didn't happen and they survive because it's MY story that we're playing."

Just because a DM can do something doesn't mean they should. And player agency should be protected where possible precisely because the players have less agency than the DM.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I know what's written. But what's written and what's practiced are sometimes not the same. i.e. It doesn't change that I feel some pressure to allow players to pick any race they wish to play.

I think that there is a divide between those who demand RAW, and those who are baffled by that demand.

Personally, I could not imagine playing with someone who points at a book and says that the game has to be played that way because it's written down by someone else. So? That guy who wrote those words isn't at the table, and he isn't going to be slapping the dice out of MY hand.

 

[Monayuris]

Sort of. A gaming group needs everyone's buy-in—both the DM and the players. If a DM doesn't have the players' buy-in, they'll need to find other players to DM for. Likewise, if the players don't have the DM's buy-in, they'll need to find a new DM. This whole "master and servant" relationship paradigm that gets bandied about so often is both unhealthy and frustrating.

D&D (like other RPGs) is a collaborative, social game that requires the entire group's consent and buy-in. The goal of D&D, like any other game, is for all of the participants to have fun and enjoy themselves, so a perspective DM needs to know their group and craft a campaign that everyone (including the DM) will enjoy. This will inevitable require compromise on everyone's part. And that's okay—that's how a healthy social group works, anyway.

Sure it is best to work together to engender a fun and engaging game situation. Of corse every one should operate in good faith to look out for each other’s enjoyment.

But the buck has to stop somewhere and that is with the DM. The DM is the final authority.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think that there is a divide between those who demand RAW, and those who are baffled by that demand.

Personally, I could not imagine playing with someone who points at a book and says that the game has to be played that way because it's written down by someone else. So? That guy who wrote those words isn't at the table, and he isn't going to slapping the dice out of MY hand.

I think the divide is between those who want to bring other peoples' ideas in the game's setting and those who think the setting and story should be theirs and theirs alone.

Personally I could not imagine running the game for someone and not wanting them to leave their own marks and ideas on the setting, making it a deeper and richer setting than my imagination would come up with on its own. As a DM I am therefore normally more flexible than RAW and not less flexible. The point of a DM involves having access to things that work beyond the rules rather than adding extra restrictive rules.

 

[Oofta]

I think the divide is between those who want to bring other peoples' ideas in the game's setting and those who think the setting and story should be theirs and theirs alone.

Personally I could not imagine running the game for someone and not wanting them to leave their own marks and ideas on the setting, making it a deeper and richer setting than my imagination would come up with on its own. As a DM I am therefore normally more flexible than RAW and not less flexible. The point of a DM involves having access to things that work beyond the rules rather than adding extra restrictive rules.

Don't conflate allowing kitchen sink with players having an impact.

I limit races, PCs can have huge impact on my campaign rule based on the actions of their PCs. Including things I neither planned for nor expected.