D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Krachek]

A DM can propose a world or setting with restricted race or classes.
If he takes time to build it, it’s an honest effort with certainly good reasons, and players may enjoy the adventure.
Of course players can just say no!
and the DM can answer, so who is DMing?!

 

[Mordhau]

Honestly. 99% of the time the conversation goes like this.

Player: I want to be an elf.
DM: There are no elves in this setting.
Player: Ok. I'll do something else.

Over time I've become less bothered about just saying no, because I've found that most of the time the players just don't care enough for me to bother going into a long conversation about why there are no elves, but if you really want to play an elf, this is what you can do etc. Usually the player has already moved on mentally and is considering other ideas.

 

[Oofta]

Your post made me shift my perspective a bit when it comes to this (and all the others like this in other threads) discussion...

We aren't really arguing/debating whether or not a GM should curate player choices.....what we are arguing is how to reduce the conflict that arises when a player wants X and the GM does not want X.

One's answer may be that the GM always wins, or maybe at some tables the player always wins, or I'm guessing at most tables there is compromise. That is what we are really discussing, not curation in and of itself.

I think we still have a bit of an issue if it's about one side or the other "winning". It's a game, a collaborative one at that. It's not DM vs player. Having said that, when I play D&D whether I'm player or DM I think the buck stops with the DM. It has to stop somewhere. The DM is responsible for not only their enjoyment, but the enjoyment of everyone at the table. That means balancing their own needs and wants along with the needs and wants of 6 others at the table, some of which may be the "squeaky wheel" type which are just more vocal about their wants and needs.

Now, obviously each table should figure out how to handle things for themselves, I can only explain what I do and why. Whether I'm inviting people I know or posting to a meetup group, I'll provide an outline how I run the game. I have a page which gives people a general idea of what kind of restrictions and house rules I have; nobody should ever come to a session 0 and be surprised by anything I say. That likely means some potential players look and say "blech" but I'd rather have that than a misunderstanding what kind of game I provide. This approach has pretty much almost always worked for me.

Because I have a persistent world, I've decided to have a curated list of races. I also have some other restrictions like plane shift and raise dead don't work the same because of the way the cosmology and mythology of the world work. But with that, I have a fairly "deep" campaign world that still has a lot of flexibility. I know it's not going to work for everyone, but I can't be the right DM for everyone any more than every DM can be right for me.

So hopefully it's not a question of "winning". Hopefully it's a DM finding players that have the same general expectations and vice versa. I think the best way to do that is to have discussions ahead of time, before any PCs are created, before anyone gets into disagreements on the basics.

 

[Faolyn]

If, as a GM, a player asked to be a warforged in a world where there weren't any warforged I'd allow it and have a lot of fun coming up with the oddball circumstance that made it happen (lightning hit a statue at the same time a cleric cast True Resurrection and a soul was created and instilled).

In one game I'm in, the warforged is a recently-awakened remnant of an ancient civilization--and it's not like D&D isn't filled with the ruins of ancient civilizations.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In one game I'm in, the warforged is a recently-awakened remnant of an ancient civilization--and it's not like D&D isn't filled with the ruins of ancient civilizations.

I had a statue possessed by a down on his luck devil as the origin of my warforged cleric. Everytime he cast a spell to help a party member he got ownership of a very very small fraction of their soul.

The soul thing had no game effect, it was just for funsies.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I had a statue possessed by a down on his luck devil as the origin of my warforged cleric. Everytime he cast a spell to help a party member he got ownership of a very very small fraction of their soul.

The soul thing had no game effect, it was just for funsies.

Perhaps he'd become persuaded by Marxist-type theories and thus believed in collective ownership.

"You own part of my soul?"
"Part of our soul, comrade."

I think the buck stops with the DM. It has to stop somewhere. The DM is responsible for not only their enjoyment, but the enjoyment of everyone at the table.

Okay. Who said "the buck stops here" has to mean "fiat declaration"? Keep in mind, the man who made that his slogan was part of a system of checks and balances, and he used the phrase to indicate who takes responsibility, not who declares what will and won't be.

I also categorically reject the notion that the DM is "responsible for...the enjoyment of everyone at the table." Everyone at the table is responsible for that. The DM has more tools and powers, but everyone participating is equally responsible for contributing to fun. It's exactly the same duty no matter what powers you may have to bring it about.

This is like saying that only judges and LEOs are responsible for having a just society to live in. Everyone is responsible for contributing to that. Judges and LEOs etc. have more powers to help bring it about, but literally everyone is responsible for producing such a society.

The duty is there, as soon as you participate in the game. Having greater or lesser power to enact it has no bearing on whether it is there.

 

[Lyxen]

In one game I'm in, the warforged is a recently-awakened remnant of an ancient civilization--and it's not like D&D isn't filled with the ruins of ancient civilizations.

And yet, warforged is one of these races that have always posed a problem of verisimilitude to me. Are they constructs or not ? How do they heal ? Not to mention things like sleeping, eating, breathing and such. Various editions have had various takes on this, with more or less success, and this is where, for me, 5e's simplicity which works very well in general fails to provide explanations that look both interesting, fun and "realistic" to people at our tables, which is why we don't have any in our groups, including in Eberron campaigns.

 

[Mordhau]

And yet, warforged is one of these races that have always posed a problem of verisimilitude to me. Are they constructs or not ? How do they heal ? Not to mention things like sleeping, eating, breathing and such. Various editions have had various takes on this, with more or less success, and this is where, for me, 5e's simplicity which works very well in general fails to provide explanations that look both interesting, fun and "realistic" to people at our tables, which is why we don't have any in our groups, including in Eberron campaigns.

The rules just don't do enough to make them feel adequately distinct.

Like the fact that they wear normal armour might make it easy from a rules perspective but it's really a bit silly that the character made out of metal (or in the case of my Silk Road game, Terracotta) needs to put on armour on top.

I also house-ruled that they could also only be magically healed by someone casting Mending at a higher spell slot, rather than cure wounds.

 

[Lyxen]

The rules just don't do enough to make them feel adequately distinct.

Indeed, that being said, I like alien races, and most of them don't need special mechanics.

I also house-ruled that they could also only be magically healed by someone casting Mending at a higher spell slot, rather than cure wounds.

After spending too many hours maintaining house rules for 3e, I decided that never again, especially with 5e's approach of rulings of rules which totally avoids any house rules. Unfortunately, for a PC race, you would need them, so we passed on the Warforged.

 

[Minigiant]

And yet, warforged is one of these races that have always posed a problem of verisimilitude to me. Are they constructs or not ? How do they heal ? Not to mention things like sleeping, eating, breathing and such. Various editions have had various takes on this, with more or less success, and this is where, for me, 5e's simplicity which works very well in general fails to provide explanations that look both interesting, fun and "realistic" to people at our tables, which is why we don't have any in our groups, including in Eberron campaigns.

The "Warforged problem" is usually do to the simplification of the game and desire to be simple.

If you do Warforged "right" it's a lot of rules and too many for many to remember.

If you do Warforged easy, then parts of the race gets confusing until you make special exceptions so it works like humaniod.

It's the "Humans, Cyborgs, Androids, Robots, Alien" problem of sci-fi games.