D&D 5E When lore and PC options collide…

[GMforPowergamers]

Yes! I never allow them. I don't even consider them a class for D&D. They are worse than Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks...

so that is ONE way to cut out caster supremacy.

 

[DND_Reborn]

so that is ONE way to cut out caster supremacy.

Not the intent, but a happy consequence.

In our MOD, Bards are half-casters, Sorcerers are a subclass of Wizard, and Warlock is a subclass of Cleric.

 

[Micah Sweet]

this doesn't make any sense... anyone is allowed to ristrict... but if your reason is flimsy I hold the right to JUDGE you and the table for making said restriction.

then I don't want to play at a table where me and a DM disagree on the fundamentals of the game, and I don't know that someone who thinks artificers are OP are going to like my games at all...

However you can present "here is why I don't like artificers" and the player gets to decied... and if more players pass on you, you don't get a game.

So yes, but if you don't agree or if you don't accept the reason then you won't play together. Sounds good, that's IMO how it should be.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yes! I never allow them. I don't even consider them a class for D&D. They are worse than Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks...

Do not believe the lies of Bards.

If you gave all the Bards in all the multiverse enemas, you could bury the lot of 'em in a thimble.

 

[J.Quondam]

My next campaign will be a pirate-themed one, set on the vast Bard Juice Sea.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

My next campaign will be a pirate-themed one, set on the vast Bard Juice Sea.

 

[Umbran]

this doesn't make any sense... anyone is allowed to ristrict... but if your reason is flimsy I hold the right to JUDGE you and the table for making said restriction.

Because, what the world really needs is more people JUDGING each other?

 

[TwoSix]

Honestly, I don't believe either consideration is particularly important. Any setting I choose to use at a table I run is my own, and I will bend it into any shape I find desirable. I couldn't care less if gnomes aren't normally in Dark Sun, or Dragonlance doesn't have tabaxi or kenku.

If the players themselves care about the "integrity" of the setting, they'll maintain it in their own PC choices. And if I play with a group of players that demonstrate that they are invested in the lore of a particular setting, I'll do my best not to violate their sense of the setting integrity.

When I run a homebrew, I've moved away from embedding particular racial options deeply into the setting. Once I know what the players want to play, then I modify the overall setting to fit their choices.

 

[Ancalagon]

100% the Lore.

I find this is particularly true in 5e since there are many ways of making an "alt class". No clerics? What about a celestial warlock or divine sorcerer? Etc etc.

Session 0 is not the time for the DM to bring this up though, because as soon as the campaign pitch reaches the players, some of them will start making their PCs. The campaign pitch should include the limitations.

 

[jgsugden]

Which is more important: preserving the lore of a setting or having the full range of PC character creation options?

For example, in the lore of Dragonlance between the Cataclysm and the start of the first novel there are no true clerics. Likewise, there are no halflings, orcs, changelings, tieflings, dragonborn, etc.

So which is more important: preserving existing lore or the full range of 5E PC character creation options?

The way that the question is asked may be biasing your results.

I do not break my lore - in terms of changing it to create a contradiction with something established. HOWEVER, I do add to my lore, including making exceptions to rules that may be thought to be absolute, but perhaps were not in reality. If I set a game in Krynn set between the Catacalysm and the first novel and a player wanted to play a dragonborn cleric of Paladine, I would look for a way to make it happen. I'd talk with the player about their ideas. I'd get creative. While doing so, I'd want to establish: 1.) Why doesn't anyone know of the race, class and situation when the first novels roll around? 2.) Why is this unique race present? 3.) How does the presence of the PC impact the lore? I might work with the player and suggest that the cleric be a traveling PC from another world that worships Bahamut and is there because they'd discovered that Paladine, who they think may be another name for Bahamut, left these people and wanted to bridge that gap. Then I might have them be folded into the lore as to what inspired the Draconians.

This is not choosing between lore and player options - it is melding them. It is developing them.

Now, if I'd had an event take place that established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that no cleric of Paladine/Bahamut, from Krynn or elsewhere, had been in Krynn at this time, this option would not be on the table as described. However, I rarely find situations where you can't enhance the lore to account for a player option and maintian the integrity of the lore. In fact, I can only recall one situation, and it was toughy because the absolute rule that was being violated was something that had been hinted at to the PCs, b ut they had not confirmed - but major storylines turned on the issue. By denying it, I was giving a hint to them that spoiled a discovery yet to be made.