Unpopular opinions go here

[aramis erak]

I don't feel qualified to say, regarding that, as I've never had much tolerance for people who won't learn at least their character-relevant rules in any game. My players may expect me to do more work than they do in some ways, but on the whole, learning the rules better is not one of them.

But 10× the work to figure out which 5 to learn.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

the real unpopular opinion here is 'why can't they try to find something to interest them that's within the curation rather than needing to be something from outside it?'

Haha

I as a player always do.

But my kid wants to play a damn bird! I dunno!

 

[James Gasik]

I only have a couple of the Primal Order books, and they’re a treasure. Ditto the old Central Casting books.

My copy of Central Casting: Heroes of Legend is hanging together by a thread, I have to use a pdf now.

 

[Velderan]

See, that's logical in the real world, where the gods are... not actually active and don't grant spells. But in a fantasy world, where the gods are active, I don't think it's actually realistic. Why would you have so many gods who just stick in their own little part of the world and never try to expand? Why have so many gods who are in charge of the same thing?

What might be more realistic is a "masks of god" thing: one set of gods, each of which is worshiped under different names in different areas.

So basically something like the Greek and Roman gods?

The 2e Dragonlance Tales of the Lance boxed set had different names for each deity as they were known by each nation/race. We used to include little bits of that in our campaigns by having a NPC be offended if the PCs referred to a deity in their presence by the common name a human might know. I believe they took a similar approach with the Taladas continent material, but went a step further by having some minor deities mistaken for avatars of another deity due to their worship never really flourishing on that continent.

 

[DammitVictor]

the real unpopular opinion here is 'why can't they try to find something to interest them that's within the curation rather than needing to be something from outside it?'

Well, in the given example of a small child... you're not really going to get anything out of playing D&D with a small child except playing D&D with a small child and your carefully curated setting and your painstakingly assembled themes are going to get chewed up and spat out. There's only two kinds of D&D you can play with a small child: the unfettered whimsy of someone who doesn't understand the mythic significance of Tolkien's cosmology, or the unfettered savagery of a pre-moral intelligence trying to prove how very grown-up they are. Real talk, you're going to get a lot of both and not much else.

I highly recommend it, it's a lot of fun, but who are we really kidding here about the artistic integrity of that game?

On the other hand, some people only want what they can't have and the only reason they want is that they can't have it. When the "small child" is 35 and agreed to play Dark Sun but now insists on playing a Gnome Paladin, they need to be firmly but cordially invited to play at the kids' table until they're willing to play the same game everyone else agreed to.

I mean... yeah. A lot of home referees are way too precious about their generic "custom" D&D settings that are just a portion of the core D&D rules draped awkwardly around the carcasses of their favorite three book series. And they maybe need to get a grip.

But if you want an unpopular opinion for this thread? Limitations and restrictions are the basis of flavor when comparing similar but not quite identical D&D settings. If you strip them away to accommodate the player who just can't imagine playing anything but Favorite Character XXXVII, you might as well just throw the rest of the book in the trash. And that player is not entitled to unilaterally force the group to play a different game than the one they agreed to.

 

[aramis erak]

On BSG...
I find oBSG holds up as a great example of Family-Friendly Sci-Fi. I wish strongly it had been able to get a multi-year run. But, I expect it would have jumped the shark in season 3.

I think nBSG would have been better had it not tried to link to oBSG.

The worst offenses of nBSG for me:

• Whitewashing the casting
• Excepting Cdr Adama, the "leaders" lack leadership qualities
• Neither Lee Adama nor Kara Thrace getting the correct levels of punishment for their multiple crimes.
• Baltar being a «bleep»-whipped dupe instead of a willingly complicit evil «bleep»-«bleep»
• total change of genre

These wouldn't have hit my phronema had the show not been labeled and advertized as BSG.

And yes, I'm aware that more recurring characters of color are in nBSG, but they're not as important, and are amongst a vastly larger pool.

 

[overgeeked]

When playing with children the most important thing is to give them space to be creative and use their imagination. Literally nothing else matters. You want to be a unicorn? That’s awesome. You want to play a dragon? So cool. You want to have a ring of infinite wishes? Let’s go. I am infinitely more interested in seeing what they can dream up than worrying about anything it says in some lame rulebook.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The very curated world we create is for us as DMs not the players.

When a kid desperately wants to play a bird person it’s better to have them be the only one from a very faraway land than say there are no bird people at all in my world.

It’s not the same as having them in every village and town; they are exceptional.

The enjoyment of the limitations of the world is usually for the DM…

That's pretty much the way 13th Age takes it all, on the whole.

 

[Faolyn]

So basically something like the Greek and Roman gods?

Pretty much. Although more world-wide. I could see regional differences creating (or having been created by) the different masks/aspects/avatars, so there could be one sun deity, but one culture/heritage sees them as being a god of the sun and healing, while another one sees them as being a goddess of the sun and war, and a third one sees them as being a god of the sun and fertility.

The 2e Dragonlance Tales of the Lance boxed set had different names for each deity as they were known by each nation/race. We used to include little bits of that in our campaigns by having a NPC be offended if the PCs referred to a deity in their presence by the common name a human might know. I believe they took a similar approach with the Taladas continent material, but went a step further by having some minor deities mistaken for avatars of another deity due to their worship never really flourishing on that continent.

Yeah, like this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

the real unpopular opinion here is 'why can't they try to find something to interest them that's within the curation rather than needing to be something from outside it?'

Of course the entirely valid counter to that is "Why is it especially within your purview to ask them?"