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

[jasper]

If your lore isn't good enough to convince the players to buy into any associated restrictions, maybe your lore isn't as interesting as you think it is. Maybe consider that their ideas might even be better than yours.

And maybe those gamers are not going to be a good social fit for my game, and I will see them Friday at Noon, at the AMC for Black Panther 2 in Imax.

 

[Irlo]

I'm not voting.

Having the full range of 5E PC options available is never important for me. In fact, it can detract from my enjoyment of the game, regardless of lore, whether I'm the DM or player ... depending of course on which specific options the players at the table opt to use. I've never been in a position that player preferences are so much in conflict that they aren't easily resolved.

 

[overgeeked]

They created it - and they aren't playing at this table. So tough.

I am running the game and I like the lore, so tough.

Malicious compliance is still compliance.

No, it’s a clear sign of a problem player.

And when the very same group of players were given more sensible guidelines in a non-adversarial manner they worked with the guidelines.

I get the impression that guidelines are inherently a problem for some.

DM by committee doesn't work. Seeing your role as more akin to a Master of Ceremonies and first among equals than the Master Of The Game does. And it is a big part of what produces creative players. In my experience both getting players to be creative and getting them to just button smash is almost entirely down to the DM and what the DM rewards.

So in your view players completely lack agency and whatever they do is the result of the DM. That’s certainly…interesting.

And I think that if you're doing 99% of the work then that's not only you but you are actively hogging the ability to have input. No wonder you complain your players button mash. It's the only reliable source of input you leave them.

So the player cannot possible be creative while playing their characters unless they get to be creative in co-designing the world they play those characters in? That’s certainly a hot take.

 

[CleverNickName]

I expected this poll to be a lot closer.
But yep, I agree with consensus: Lore is far more important and interesting.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There are good reasons to ban races (Kender...)

if ever there was a race worthy of a all campaign ban it would be kender...

I have an old 3.5 rule someone (maybe on here) suggested for when players ask if they can play one... "Sure, but you don't get out of any of the social contract of the game, and I have 0 issues having you imprisoned for being a thief. None of my worlds have the fluff of "everyone loves kenders" so expect to be treated how you act...

 

[Neonchameleon]

It’s not about age, in my experience, rather about their experience with gaming. The people who’ve played old-school games will be more likely to try shenanigans. Talk about limitations breeding creativity. You have a 10-foot pole, 50 feet of rope, and five days of food and water. Go. Whereas players who haven’t tend to find answers on the character sheet and in the rules.

In my experience it's the opposite. The Old School players are the ones likely to turtle up, list everything on their character sheet, and be paranoid. New players jump in both feet first with only a little reference to .

What also happens is that new players who are used to having their ideas shut down then go with what they know works.

Yep. Anything that’s reasonably there is there. But it won’t be as reliable as a sword swing or a cantrip nor will it do as much damage, so it’s ignored by less experienced players.

And ignored by players with experience of you as a DM because it won't be as reliable as a sword swing or a cantrip or even do as much damage. This is called "Learning how the setting works" and it is the DM that runs the setting. If all your players are responding to your DMing one way then the problem is not with the players as they are all different people. It's with what you as a DM are teaching them. They learn from you and they learn button mashing is more effective.

Meanwhile one of the reasons I'm running Spelljammer is that having empty space out there means that when my players improvise they can get disproportionately good effects (throwing people into space, boarding actions, breaching the air bubbles). And one reason I like 4e is because having easy access to forced movement gives you low cost engaging with the environment - and there are good improvisational guidelines (even if badly presented) to enable DMs to encourage improvisation.

One of the fundamental jobs you have as a DM is to teach new players and encourage the behaviour you want to see. If you're a perma-DM and all your new players are doing the same thing then you are the common connection. Stop blaming them.

For me, verisimilitude is king. A group of adventurers who sits on their hands while the big bad slaughters people are generally seen as just as evil as the big bad.

For me that's not verisimilitude but toxic DMing. Verisimilitude says that a group of adventurers who sit on their hands have their reputation fade. But not risking their lives to not do things in no way makes them as bad as the people actually doing them unless they are literally holding the bad guys' coats.

And for me verisimilitude also says as a player character that if you are going to be castigated for not being some sort of omnipotent hero and able to solve every act of evil and always risk their lives then a significant number of adventurers are going to decide "screw those guys" with varying consequences.

I already tried that and it didn’t work. Unlimited inspiration. The optional rule for awarding inspiration for thematic play and the theme was swashbuckling adventure. Handed out advantage for anything that wasn’t line up and smash. And they still just lined up and smashed. It’s one of the main reasons I dropped 5E and went back to older editions and other games.

And here I have a lot of sympathy. 5e is a bulky system with poor DMing tools. It does some things decently (the subclass system is great) but there's nothing I think it's the best for and as a DM it gives me nothing. I come with enough I can handle it but that's because of what I bring with me.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Y'know, this just reminds me of a very specific point:

The orcs of 35 years ago are not the orcs someone would want to play today. We're in a post-Warcraft universe where LotR orcs are far from the "This is an orc" image, instead the big things that influenced that image being Warhammer and Warcraft. Even D&D has had to bend to those being the big sources for the common image of "This is an orc", and Dragonlance kind of doesn't really have an answer to that archetype. Well, it technically has an answer, but everyone says 'That's an error in a book' rather than expand on it like that time Headmasters got mentioned as an ancient thing in Transformers and we just went ??? until a later comic tied into it and went "Yeah, Headmasters were ancient, have some Mysteries"

this is why the answer should be 'yeah lets add um' (IMO)

 

[Vaalingrade]

And yet, the DM shouldn't be made to run a game that will be less fun for him because it contrasts with his preferences either.

I as a player don't like Paladins. Rather than just not playing one, I will conspire with the DM to make sure another player, who likes playing Paladins isn't allowed to.

Is that a thing that sounds reasonable?

Because that's what this actually is. One player keeping the others from playing what they want because they don't personally like them. The DM isn't special in this aspect.

 

[Incenjucar]

In most cases I hope that the DM and player can come to an agreement on reskinning when it's just a flavor conflict, like wanting to play a goblin for the features in a goblin-free world as some kind of atypical gully dwarf or kobold or something.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It just isn't that clear cut. When a person starts to create a setting, of course their mind is drawn to things they like, and they're far more likely to write them into the setting than things they don't like. What exists is defined by the lore, but what lore gets created is guided by personal preferences in the first place.

Right, and if they were simply writing fiction, then I’d say nothing more needs to be said about it. But since they’re not writing fiction, but instead establishing fictional details for players to interact with, I’d say it’s not really enough.

If there’s a compelling reason for some race or class to be excluded, that’s one thing. But just “I don’t like dragonborn so they don’t exist” is another.