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

[Hussar]

Just to add to @GMforPowergamers' point, sure, there might be very good reasons why you restrict something from a campaign. For example, a campaign where survival - food, water, disease, that sort of thing - is a major element, at least for a significant chunk of the campaign, then you might want to not allow Warforged. ((Do warforged eat? I forget, but, you follow my point I hope))

So, sure, restrictions that are based in the campaign I can totally get behind. Restrictions that are purely setting based? Could not possibly care less.

 

[Minigiant]

If a DM decides to run a severely restricted choice campaign, at a certain point I'd wonder why they chose D&D. On the other hand as long as they're up front about what they're doing and why I don't see an issue. Either I'll decide to join or not. But the restrictions (or lack therein) are not inherently good or bad.

Well that is often the issue. Many DMs and Worldbuilders use "lore" to recreate a feeling that would be better played using a different system or with heavy houserules.

D&D is a game. If your lore doesn't support a fun game and breaks the agreement that the player get to make their own PCs, it's not good lore for D&D.

The DM gets to make whatever lore they want. It however doesn't insulate them from being called out on disruptive lore.

As far as theme and lore, the dictionary definition of theme that applies: "unifying or dominant idea, motif". The themes of a campaign serve the lore and set the tone.

Feel free to disagree.

Pirates of the Caribbean, Spelljammer, and Iomandra have swashbukling themes but vastly direct lores and PC options.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Just to add to @GMforPowergamers' point, sure, there might be very good reasons why you restrict something from a campaign. For example, a campaign where survival - food, water, disease, that sort of thing - is a major element, at least for a significant chunk of the campaign, then you might want to not allow Warforged. ((Do warforged eat? I forget, but, you follow my point I hope))

So, sure, restrictions that are based in the campaign I can totally get behind. Restrictions that are purely setting based? Could not possibly care less.

back in 3.5 we had a set of campaigns (one my buddy ran and it fell apart, second I ran starting 2 months later) the concept (high level there were a lot of differences) was "Hey you are going to crash on a dessert island and have to survive"
The first campaign had like 20+ restrictions (race, class, feat, spell you name it) and so we all took the restrictions and worked around them to find combos to negate parts of the problem... I will never forget the monk who had 3 dozen silver piercings so we would have silver to make a silver knife AND they would have an unarmed strike with no weapons... part of what made the game blow up was too many players took the restrictions and STILL found things to make the DM mad...
When I ran my version I just said "Don't try to game the system, but do what you want" and didn't restrict anything (and this is end stage 3.5 so there were like 100 classes and a billion spells) and yet EVERYONE made characters that didn't cheese anything. Ironicly when the other DM asked why the same players didn't do the same thing, the argument back was "You were too advaserial, he just asked us to make it fun"

 

[Maxperson]

no "because we say so" is the fall back of NOT having a reason.

Because I say so is literally every rule and piece of lore ever. Why do we roll a d20 to hit? Gygax said so. Why do wizards have fireball on the spell list? Gygax said so. Why do draconians come from corrupted good dragon eggs? Weis and Hickman said so. "Because we say so" is the only way something gets into a game or setting.

Lets take my game of thrones/middle earth game (that I want to do again). Lets say someone said "Hey I want to use halfling stats and just be a short human" I had written a few hundred pages of lore that didn't include that. I could say "No those aren't an option" but if pressed with why I would have no good answer.

Yep. That's because you said so.

Lets say another player said they wanted to take the owil or aarakacra... (Iwould guess looking like stratos from heman)this one I WOULD have a good reason involving flight and the ability to fly being a key part of the game (there used to be dragons and dragon riders, and there are only a few flying options and all far off and frightening) and would change a big theme of even the first adventure planned...

And that good reason is because you said so.

Look. I get what you are saying, but at the same time you can't say, "because I said so" is the bad thing, because everything is "because I said so." You need another reason. In the case of Athas the lore is supported by genocide, which can be in error by the way, so the lore doesn't actually mean no orcs can be on Athas. In the case of Krynn, the lore is that the creation does not support the inclusion of orcs, which is correct. It doesn't support it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Just to add to @GMforPowergamers' point, sure, there might be very good reasons why you restrict something from a campaign. For example, a campaign where survival - food, water, disease, that sort of thing - is a major element, at least for a significant chunk of the campaign, then you might want to not allow Warforged. ((Do warforged eat? I forget, but, you follow my point I hope))

So, sure, restrictions that are based in the campaign I can totally get behind. Restrictions that are purely setting based? Could not possibly care less.

So you're saying you're not interested in playing in an established setting. You should just say that.

 

[MGibster]

I chose lore. If we just allow any old thing then we end up with Rifts. Which is kind of cool, but maybe no the vibe I'm going for.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I give zero weight to the "importance of having the full range of PC options."

So I guess "preserving lore" wins by default.

 

[Aldarc]

It's easy for me to say either but in truth I recognize that I have different thresholds about what I am willing to tolerate and they may not be entirely consistent.

There will be times when I feel that lore trumps PC options and times when I feel that PC options trump lore. At times I may have to say "no" to player so that it doesn't ruin the experience for other players who have invested their enthusaism in the setting by creating PCs consistent with lore or even my own enthusiasm for running the game. I may tell that player that the PC that they want to play would be more appropriate for another campaign that I may have on the backburner, and that maybe they should wait until then to play it. At times I may have to say "no" to the setting so that it doesn't ruin the experience for other players who have invested their enthusiasm in their full-range of PC options. I may have to make concessions. It really feels like a case by case basis.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Without lore, choice of race is meaningless.

 

[Hussar]

So you're saying you're not interested in playing in an established setting. You should just say that.

Not at all actually. If I play in an established setting, I make it a point to make the most established character I can possibly make. AFAIC, what's the point of playing in an established setting and then ignoring that setting to make a character?

However, that being said, I realize that I am very much an outlier here. At least in my experience. Most players barely pay any attention to the setting and come to the table with a character concept already fleshed out in their head that they will then just dump into whatever setting the DM is playing and expect it to work.

And, again, since we're talking about restrictions, if the restriction has no real reason other than "well, they just don't" then, no, that doesn't have a whole lot of meaning to me. So, the fact that there are no gnomes in Scarred Lands doesn't mean that I won't allow players to play a gnome. ((Note, gnomes were added later to the setting in a later supplement on another continent - but the main continent of Ghaelspad has no gnomes.))

Or, the whole orc thing in Dragonlance. As I said there, orcs were not originally left out of the setting. You absolutely could play a half-orc in Dragonlance when it came out. The whole "there are no orcs in this setting" is a later change to the setting that was mostly done to distance the setting from Tolkien rather than for any actual in-universe reason. Considering that orcs in 1e were just another kind of goblin anyway, I fail to see the big deal.

Would I play a half-orc in Dragonlance? Nope. But, then again, the very traditional DL game that I did play in sort of recently featured a gnomish sorcerer and a kender cleric, as well as a minotaur bard. So, well, who am i to judge? It was a great game and having those characters there added, rather than subtracted, from the game.

Like I said earlier, player excitement is worth far, far more to me than any lore written by someone who has never and will never sit at my table.