Chaosmancer
Legend
You asked how was saying Tabaxi had been around as long as humans. You then refused to clarify if you wanted setting information or game information. So I gave you game information.
But if you want to make it solely about this innkeeper, I'm going to shock you, the DM decides. So, let us follow that up. Why did that DM decide that in their world they wanted a race who would be discriminated by their appearance? They made the decision that Tabaxi were so rare that discrimination was guaranteed, to the point that the Tabaxi player can't even go into an inn without being treated with fear and suspicion. They could have just as easily made the decision that in a world where Tabaxi and humans have known each other for hundreds of years, such a thing does not happen.
So why decide to include Fantasy Racism?
Okay, so you can't be a disruptive player for bringing something that is not explicitly banned?
Did you explicitly ban Kryptonians? Would I be less disruptive for bringing that character? I mean, that is the same as bringing a cleric that doesn't exist. So where are these lines getting drawn? Why is Mike Carr not a disruptive player?
Never said they were. Remember, the conversation was that the DM could make a decision, thinking it would increase fun, and that it did not increase fun. You immediately jumped to asking if the DMs fun doesn't matter. No other information was provided, except that the decision did not increase fun.
Heck, from my original example, it could have been the DM who was having less fun with their decision, while the players were fine with it. You just assumed that the situation had to be that the DM was making a decision to increase their own fun at the expense of the players fun, and that should be the discussion, and that the DM was right to do so. But, this should not be a zero sum game.
And yet, the DM never has to compromise. THIS IS THE PROBLEM.
To the player, they have two choices. Compromise their enjoyment by playing something else, or be banished. That is it. To the DM? They declare that their enjoyment is more important than anyone elses. If anything lowers their enjoyment, it is banned, and the players must bow to that demand.
You say you don't allow selfish people at your table, while simultaneously exulting in how selfish the DM can be by making these demands and getting rid of people who won't kneel before them. Why is it that only that only the player must compromise? Because the DM referees the game? They don't even need to have built the world. The DM might be running the Forgotten Realms, that has explicitly put dragonborn into the game, but they are free to alter the official lore and rebuild the world without Dragonborn, and if that lowers a player's enjoyment, too bad, play something else. And if a player puts forth their enjoyment as being equal to the DMs? They are kicked for being selfish and trying to ruin the DMs fun.
Relationships aren't a one-way street, and the DM is not supreme. They should work with their players, not dictate to them.
Look up Max, see that far above? That's the point that you missed.
You said that it can't be a mechanical change to the game if it works just as well. So I proposed an explicit mechanical change that works just as well. To demonstrate that a mechanical change can be made, and the game still function just as well, making the "function just as well" measure, a worthless measure for deciding if something is a mechanical change.
Here, I'll do it again.
Heavy Armor takes Five minutes to doff and don.
That is an exlpicit mechanical change. The mechanics are currently that it takes ten minutes. The game still functions just as well, which under your standard would tell me I did not change the mechanics of the game. Yet, I clearly did. So your standard does not work.
So show me evidence of them not being able to retract their claws.
Also, the only cats that do not have retractable claws appear to be Cheetahs, the Fishing Cat, the Flat-headed cat and the Iriomote Cat. In most cases the semi-retractable claws they do have are blunted by constant contact with the ground. Retractable claws are kept sharp.
So... do Tabaxi have sharp claws? They do! Most likely they are retractable, just like Jaguars and Leopards, which were inspiration for the Tabaxi.
Edit: Ninja'd by Mecheon
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Hmm... wrong. Very wrong.
Last campaign with my Roll20 group we were doing a Neverwinter game. We had... I can't even remember, maybe a dozen people who came in and left? I know for a while we gained and lost people every single week.
And still, I say that that campaign was not larger than the players in it. Because it was about and shaped by the players in it.
No, I don't think discussing the edition of the game that most of the thread is discussing is somehow too narrow of a scope. You seem to forget that the game keeps evolving. DnD 5e does not hold to the same expectations of 2e. Treating them like the same game is a mistake.
Too bad so few people seem to agree that is a thing that should happen.
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Do humans in DnD have lungs? It doesn't explicitly say, so if we are limited to what is said they don't, right?
Except, we know that people have lungs, so we don't need the game to tell us that Human's have lungs, because it is just implied.
Tabaxi are cat people, specifically inspired by Leopard and Jaguars, and they have sharp claws. Leopard and Jaguar claws are retractable, to keep them sharp and not dulled by day to day activities. Therefore, it is not only logical, but most likely expected that they have retractable claws. You can rule in the inverse, but declaring that they do not unless it is written that they do is... kind of bull headed. I don't need the book to explicitly tell me the Jaguar Men have traits like a Jagaur. Them being Jaguar Men implies to totality of that.
Factually wrong.
Superman appeared in Action Comics #1. Metropolis was first named and began developing in Action Comics #16. So Superman very clearly came first, and Metropolis was build around him.
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I think the larger point is that settings and characters are intertwined.
As I said directly above you, Metropolis was developed after superman, specifically for Superman. But, it is also the home of Blue Beetle and Boost Gold. You can have other stories in Metropolis, but you also can't say that Metropolis existed as a setting before the character of Superman was created.
It is give and take. A setting adjusts to the characters in it and to the person creating the setting. Neither is completely independent of the other.
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Or, more accurately, New York which inspired Gotham predates Batman.
But Gotham itself was not named until Batman #4. Again. The character came first, in a pastiche of New York, then the Pastiche was given a name and developed into a setting.
Gotham did not predate Batman.
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Would you propose that it would have been less disruptive as a Centaur Genie Warlock with the name of a 20th century avant garde artist/singer, and the same personality and accent?
As in, do you honestly feel like the biggest thing that ruined the immersion for you and your fellow players was that the one guy was playing a different race? What if it was a Centaur Sorcerer and everything else was the same?
Because, I think with this line "In addition, the "problem" players .... devotion .... to their anachronistic concept and roleplaying" tells us that it was really the bit acting of 20th century avant garde artist/singer, and the same personality and accent that was the real problem.
And you can't ban that. I mean, you can certainly try to ban the player from using certain names or deciding on their character's personality, but no where in this thread has anyone said "My world is very thematic, so no one can act like Oprah."
Would having someone acting like Oprah at the table be disruptive? Yes, at least to me personally, because I don't tend to find impressions like that funny for more than about 5 seconds. But race has nothing to do with that. Banning Satyrs would not have made any difference to what that player did.
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The reason fantasy race is meaningless for me is 30 years of fantasy Elf. I have seen Elf mean so many different things at this point it has rendered the word Elf meaningless. Elf does not mean Tolkien Elf, or Santa's Elf, or even Elf On A Shelf. I've seen Plant Elf, and Fey Elf, and Human With Pointy Ears Elf, and many many more. Thus I cannot possibly conceive of a character concept that cannot be separated from the make-believe race that it is tied to. IMHO, a player that says they can't play concept X unless it's race X is an unimaginative player.
I believe we do see it on a different level. I see fluff as fluff that can be changed to suit a campaign and that means fluff is meaningless. You assign intrinsic value to fluff as though it is mechanics and thus not malleable. Maybe I've just worked with too many different systems that are not D&D so it's far easier for me to separate mechanics from fluff. I don't know.
Is the word "Dog" equally meaningless?
I mean, I've seen big dogs, medium dogs, small dogs, protective dogs, lazy dogs, vicious dogs, sweet dogs, wild dogs, disciplined dogs, robot dogs, Ect.
So, if I'm writing a story and I can't think of something other than a dog to put in it, am I just unimaginative?
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You know, just to give some pushback here. Just because someone wrote something long doesn't mean they wrote something that is inappropriate for a 1st level character.
I mean, yes, I fully get the "I don't have time to read this" aspect of the whole situation. 100%
But, when I wrote the backstory for my Half-Elf Paladin, I ended up doing it in three parts. Each scene in the shrine where he made his oath. The first part was him making his oath to his god, and talking about growing up in the destroyed city and why he was making this oath. The second scene was him marrying his wife, and a little focus on her personality, and the last one was him dealing with being fired from the city watch.
It was a bit long, because it was not written as a summary, and I wrote it just as much if not more for myself than the DM. Helping me explore "who is this person who has lived 40 years."
Again, I fully get the idea that you don't have time to read short stories. I get that. But just because they wrote something long, doesn't mean they wrote something that tries to make them more experienced than they should. They might have just approached it as a "defining scene" instead of biographical summary.
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Yeah, I've read some of Gygax's thoughts thanks to this forum.
I consider his attitude toxic at worst, and misguided at best.
We DMs are not special. We aren't deserving of any special praise or anything else. Do we do a lot of work? Sure. But as someone who has tried to get their players into DMing, I would flatly tell them to ignore any advice given by Gygax, because all of that talk about how special DMs are is going to do nothing but tell those players they aren't worthy of being DMs.
And people wonder why we have a hard time getting new people to DM.
