D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Imaro]

No. We are all reasonable adults.

I don't think its a question of whether you all are reasonable or adults... I think its more a question of numbers and advocacy.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Who else has the final say, then, if not the DM?

It has to be someone. Not the group, not consensus, but someONE;

I see absolutely no reason the latter has to be true. It may be more practicable in some cases, but "has to be"?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Doesn't this just mean anything beneficial for the players (whether fairly done or not) will win by majority?

Only if you have players who can't collectively look at the big picture. That's not uncommon, but its far from universal.

 

[Imaro]

Only if you have players who can't collectively look at the big picture. That's not uncommon, but its far from universal.

I don't think anything being discussed in this thread is universal... few things in life are... but the framing of the example was clearly one where a group vote allowed the players to advocate for themselves by overriding the DM's decision using pure numbers... a situation that will, due to pure numbers, always be the case in this type of situation.

 

[Zardnaar]

I normally do spotlighted races (listing my preferred races in the world) and a banned list. The banned list is very small atm it's no fliers. I might ban peace and twilight clerics idk.

I do themed games players get to pick the theme from a list. If the players don't co-operate I'll offer to change the theme. If they're all being contrarian no game I'll boot myself.

 

[Oofta]

I'm not sure that anyone is saying a DM can never say no.

I think the general idea of the thread is more that players are probably going to enjoy the game and be more invested if they get to play what they want, and how a DM can accommodate that without having to drastically alter their campaign to fit a new idea.

Then we just draw lines at different spots but as DMs we're still drawing lines based on preference and expectations. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Imaro]

To add to the main discussion... I think you as a DM and you as a player should do what works for you.

I've taken/been involved in both approaches and it has depended on whether the DM wanted to take the extra time, effort, consideration, etc.... of incorporating and working out some worldbuilding with their players or not... but also just as important was whether the players wanted to expend the extra time, effort, and commitment to worldbuild with the DM.

Sometimes one or both of these things have aligned and we collaborate... at other times they didn't and we didn't collaborate. Honestly I noticed little to no difference in how engaged my players were with the world or campaign. Personally I would hope a player who found themselves unable to engage with either... irregardless of the method they were constructed by... would choose to sit this campaign out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Cure wounds doesn't work on undead or constructs. It does work on plants and elementals, which should neatly cover the stone and even metal parts of their body.

How does it work? Perhaps cure wounds causes the wood parts to heal and the stone parts to crystallize back together, but does nothing for the metal. Perhaps most warforged have a mess of dents and rends on their metal parts (or else they have to go to a welder for "plastic" surgery to reduce those scars).

Or perhaps the alchemical fluids in each warforged gives them a biology that works in much the same way as a human's does, even if their organs and muscles are made of inhuman material.


No, of course you don't need to like it or use warforged all. You don't have to use them even if you like them and find them completely sensible. My suggestion was to read some of their creator's thoughts, because they may provide you with insight that makes them make more sense to you.

See, my issue is that I dont really like the warforged as the only example of artificial life as a PC. They are very specific, in history and construction to Eberron. That's why I really liked the Autognome. It's a different take on a concept I'm really fond of (constructed life) without being the really specific warforged.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Who else has the final say, then, if not the DM?

It has to be someone. Not the group, not consensus, but someONE; as - speaking from experience both in and out of RPGing - having a single final-word authority to fall back on when other means of resolution have failed is the only way these things can work and remain sustainable.

Who has the final say when spouses look for dinner? Who has the final say when four friends are deciding what to do on their twice-monthly get-together? Who has the final say in a group project with groups assigned by the instructor? There are tons of situations in human organization where you do not have an automatic, single voice that lays down the law, but rather work toward consensus or agree that consensus cannot be achieved.

I completely agree that for some things, a person who makes a judgment call is needed. That's when people disagree about rules. And when I say "rules," I mean rules, rulings, houserules, vague recollections, ad-hoc band-aids, whatever it is that adjudicates. But rules-adjudication is not what's happening when someone says, "I don't run games for evil PCs, because I doubt my ability to run an enjoyable game for them." That's about as far from settling a dispute judicially as one can get; the person saying that, far from being a judge separate from the parties involved, is in fact one of the petitioners advocating. To call one of the petitioners "judge" is to be, quite literally, prejudiced: to judge the case in advance. It is, instead, an expression of personal taste; far from being an adjudicator, the speaker is advocating for their value-judgment(s).

The DM's role features a lot of adjudication, yes. But the DM is far more than a mere adjudicator; that was one of the most common (and, for me, frustrating) criticisms levied at 4e, after all, that the DM needs to be more than merely a central processing unit for the rules. Things like "I don't run games for evil PCs" are not firm and final answers about rules, they are expressions of personal interest and taste. Those are things which should be talked out. I have often said here de gustibus non disputandum est, of taste there can be no dispute, but that is no refutation of this. Indeed, it is rather saying that one should not conflate discussions of taste (where truth-values and correctness cannot be defined) with disputes about rules (that can be adjudicated, where truth-values and correctness are defined but not always obvious).

Both things, rules-adjudications and value-judgments, need to come to some kind of conclusion, even if that conclusion is "we cannot agree and must thus separate." But the process of coming to a conclusion for value-judgments generally is (and generally should be) very different from the one used for rules-adjudications. Since each person equally brings their own set of tastes and preferences, even if some exert more labor, every participant has an equal right to argue for their preferences, and an equal duty to respect the preferences of others (the two statements are equivalent, just phrased in terms of those who give, duties/responsibilities, or those who receive, rights.)

Hence why I categorically rejected the argument earlier that the DM is the one "responsible for everyone's fun." Everyone is "responsible for everyone's fun." Anyone can harm everyone's fun. Further, just as every duty implies some kind of right and vice-versa, everyone has the right to have fun during the game (and thus to leave, if the game is found lacking). It is this reciprocal relationship which enables tabletop roleplay to be as enjoyable as it is.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

See, my issue is that I dont really like the warforged as the only example of artificial life as a PC. They are very specific, in history and construction to Eberron. That's why I really liked the Autognome. It's a different take on a concept I'm really fond of (constructed life) without being the really specific warforged.

What's wrong with just...generalizing "warforged" to artificial life overall? Like, yes, I get that the name "warforged" comes from their Eberron origin. But clearly the creators don't have any problem with "warforged" not actually forged for war (otherwise they wouldn't have even considered the "envoy" version), and names are literally THE easiest thing to change.

In one proto-setting idea I came up with some time ago, I called them "mekka" (though these days I'd probably use the Greek mekhane instead), and said they were the creations of a long-disappeared culture. In the original idea for this setting, humans don't exist on the main continent, they've only just begun to arrive within the past generation or two as refugees from a faraway place suffering some kind of ill-defined cataclysm. For some mekka, this is the Creators finally returning to them after centuries away; for others, humans are just a curiosity, a coincidental physical resemblance; a few find humans blasphemous (since they clearly don't have the wisdom the Creators would have to have, obviously!); and there's even a small group that see humans as the "updated model," being fully organic creations of the long-absent Creators, so they hope to find some way to gain truly flesh-and-blood bodies of their own.

And if you want more artificial life...it's not like it's that hard to homebrew a race for 5e (or D&D in general). Perhaps something like this (literally spitballing; will count up the time spent writing it):

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

.
Droida
Abilities. +2 Intelligence, +1 Strength: The droida are calculating and cunning, and their constructed bodies pack quite a punch.
Age. Droida are constructed, not born, so they neither mature nor age in the usual sense. Delicate internal components can collect damage over time, but whether or not they die of old age is unknown. You are immune to magical aging effects.
Alignment. Due to their constructed, pre-programmed nature, droida tend to favor lawful alignments, particularly lawful neutral, but some have had a flash of insight or defining personal experience which pushes them in other directions.
Size. Your size is Medium.
Constructed Resilience.You were built by the great droida-construction engine, represented by the following benefits:

• You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
• You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe.
• You are immune to disease.
• You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep.

Sentry's Rest. When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours in an inactive, motionless state, rather than sleeping. In this state, you appear inert, but it doesn't render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.
Archived Knowledge. Each of the droida are constructed with innate understanding collected from prior iterations. Select one of the following skills: Arcana, History, Medicine, Nature, Religion. You gain proficiency with this skill, and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make using this skill. This benefit does not stack with any other benefit which allows you to double your proficiency bonus.
Calculated Brilliance. Choose any skill with which you do not have proficiency. For the next ten minutes, you can add your proficiency bonus to ability checks made using that skill, as if you were proficient with it, so long as performing the check does not take longer than ten minutes. If a task would require more than ten minutes to complete, but less than the total amount of remaining time you could benefit from this feature, you may expend multiple uses of this feature, up to your full proficiency bonus, for consecutive durations up to one hour total. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all uses of it when you finish a long rest.

There. All of ~22 minutes (much of which was "hmm, I should check against the official stuff to see what is explicitly okay.") A droida (singular and plural) is thus far more intellectual and knowledge-oriented, fitting closer to the idea of the machine pseudo-hive-mind constantly striving to improve itself (something like V'ger, but made up of many independent units that report back to the central creation-engine-mind.) They can actually be decent physical combatants as well, but their main focus is being really skilled and adaptable to changing circumstances.