D&D 5E We Would Hate A BG3 Campaign

[pemerton]

Oh, I knew it was a very common and popular house rule. I just didn’t think it was a good one. BG3 changed my mind by showing me an example of it used to really good effect.

It's from 4e D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

Given the way people talk about it around here? Yeah, I really do believe most GMs who "curate" things are basically just kicking out the stuff they don't like.

I have yet to see a single person articulate actually good, serious reasons why things have to be diamond-perfect exactly their vision and nothing else. And yes, I am thinking of actual users on this very forum who have explicitly said that their "vision" is much more important than player choices.

I don't like shellfish so don't eat them.

I don't like XYZ and don't include it in my games.

 

[Zardnaar]

Again, Consciously Useless Advice for 1000.

Telling someone to run a game when they want to play something is like telling someone to start their own basketball team if they want the home team to play well. It's completely pointless. I want to PLAY! How does RUNNING a game help me PLAY something?

Seriously. You are giving advice that is intentionally irrelevant and acting like it's somehow profound or useful or in any way revelatory. It's not. It never has been. You already know that.


So, no elves, dwarves, nor halflings? No magic of any sort? Because I find that extremely unlikely.


So it isn't actually "if it wasn't available in 432 BC." It's "If it wasn't available in 432 BC, and I haven't grandfathered it in."

Technology and magic two different things. You coukd do it other way round. Low magic high Technology.

DM says you have you find a mentor and multiclass into spellcasting classes.

Up to you if you sign up to play. DMs world like Star Wars. The big bads actively hunt and kill spellcasters. They're pretty much extinct.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So, no elves, dwarves, nor halflings? No magic of any sort? Because I find that extremely unlikely.

I've seen plenty of historical-based D&D games that are humans only for PCs. As for magic, that was real to the people living at the time, so it would be strange to remove it.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Except that I find that, in the vast majority of cases, the reason given isn't, "Because I have a really cool concept I want to express through this campaign and including the thing you mentioned isn't really compatible with doing so. Could we talk it out and maybe find something that works for both of us?"

If in the vast majority of cases, you are the one who is coming out on the wrong end, that might be something to think about and work on. Is it not possible that your 'opponent' might have a point?

Instead, it is, in almost every instance, "I just think <X> are stupid, so I don't let people play them in my games."

Okay.

And when I propose all sorts of alternative options--not just "a village a short ways away," but things like being a one-off (e.g. someone mutated by magic or alchemy, or an alien trying to get back to their own people, or the result of someone's efforts to bring two opposing entities closer together, or coming from a parallel universe, or...) I am shut down, every single time. Not because any of those options are incompatible--it is, in nearly every case, because the person simply doesn't like them and thus nobody should ever get to play one in their games. "My preferences are simply more important."

Maybe it's because this person has invested a lot of time into developing a campaign for the players and your immediate first step is to try to blow that up? If you consider the other person here, maybe both people win. What is it about your particular build that is so important that it's worth expending time and effort for the DM to change their game world to suit your needs (and not even the needs of the other players in this campaign)? If you clarify that for them, and it's worth everyone's while (not just yours), maybe it happens.

And yes, I have had people say something essentially identical to that. More than once. Because the poor, beleaguered DM with absolute power and zero accountability slaves so hard for their group, while the players who literally can't do anything without DM approval are living large doing only the things they're allowed to do, going to the places they're allowed to go, and (all too often) misled into believing they have any real agency whatsoever.

More than once... maybe you should take that as a clue.

Edit:
Hence why I said in another thread that I find the pattern today is one of avoiding accommodation as much as humanly possible. It is viking hat all the way, my-way-or-the-highway, "no, hell no, and never darken my door again" (something someone actually said about a request for something not explicitly approved in their games, on another forum.) All shall love DM Empowerment, and despair.

Someone goes 'viking hat' when they are confronted in a certain way. In general, the problem is not with the person being confronted, but in the manner in which they are being confronted.

I have been quite blunt in this post. Will you go 'viking hat' or will you consider what I said?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've seen plenty of historical-based D&D games that are humans only for PCs. As for magic, that was real to the people living at the time, so it would be strange to remove it.

It's worth noting, my "I find that extremely unlikely" was literally proven true later in that very same post. Elves, dwarves, halflings, and magic are all present in the game described. Exactly as I had predicted.

That doesn't mean people can't run such games. I am, in fact, quite in favor of people playing thematic games. Though if we're opening things up to "well if myths describe it, it's there too," dragonborn have at least three different sources they could come from that are 100% Greek-myth derived (the Spartoi/"sown ones," the Ophiogenes, and the descendants of various "drakaina"/female dragons.) One of several reasons why I find it so funny that people give examples of things they think will be highly exclusive, only to see that things are in fact quite a bit more open than they realized. Ant-people (Myrmidones) and cow-people (minotaur) and dog-people (cynocephalos and hemycynes) and fish-people (Telchines) and even arguably rabbit or elephant people (the Panotti, mythically famous for their enormous ears.)

Myth is vast. Usually, far more vast than most people think.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have been quite blunt in this post. Will you go 'viking hat' or will you consider what I said?

Have you actually given me a reason to do so, or have you simply characterized me as a crazed extremist with no interest in discussion?

I have little desire to discuss things with someone who won't do what he asks of me.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Have you actually given me a reason to do so, or have you simply characterized me as a crazed extremist with no interest in discussion?

I have not done the latter.

I have little desire to discuss things with someone who won't do what he asks of me.

How do you figure?

 

[Burnside]

PHB races plus Githyanki only. DM changed them as well.

Pedantic, but this isn't actually accurate. In addition to Githyanki, other non-PHB race options in BG3 are:

Duergar - originally from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, later reprinted in Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse
Deep Gnome - same as above
3 Variant Half-elves - from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (i.e. half-drow, half-high elf, half-wood elf)
3 Variant Tieflings - from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (Zariel, Asmodeus, Mephistopheles)

Interestingly, because you are REQUIRED to pick a sub-race for the Half-Elf, the base 5E PHB version of the Half-Elf actually isn't in the game at all (the PHB version of the Tiefling is effectively the Asmodeus Tiefling). So in that sense "curated list of PHB options" is technically accurate, although with that exception, every race, subrace, class, and subclass from the PHB is in the game, albeit with minor or major re-workings in some cases.

"Curated list from Xanathar's" doesn't really cover the additional sub-class options either. The available non-PHB sub-classes are:

Ranger - Gloom Stalker (Xanathar's)
Druid - Circle of Spores (originally from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, reprinted in Tasha's)
Sorcerer - Storm (Xanathar's)
Barbarian - Wild Magic (Tasha's)
Bard - Swords (Xanathar's)
Paladin - Oathbreaker (Dungeon Master's Guide)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have not done the latter.

Well, let's see...

If in the vast majority of cases, you are the one who is coming out on the wrong end, that might be something to think about and work on. Is it not possible that your 'opponent' might have a point?

What am I supposed to get from this? Because the plain meaning of it is, "You can't see any value in the things someone who disagrees with you is saying." In other words, you don't believe I'm even capable of sincere discussion.

Maybe it's because this person has invested a lot of time into developing a campaign for the players and your immediate first step is to try to blow that up?

Literally characterizing me as a terrorist bomber. How is that not painting me as an extremist before we even begin?

If you consider the other person here, maybe both people win.

"If you consider the other person" -> "You are not considering the other person at all, when you could be."

What is it about your particular build that is so important that it's worth expending time and effort for the DM to change their game world to suit your needs (and not even the needs of the other players in this campaign)? If you clarify that for them, and it's worth everyone's while (not just yours), maybe it happens.

How can I do that if I'm not even able to have a conversation? If I'm not even able to propose options and discuss the situation? That's literally all I asked for. I explicitly said so, multiple times.

How do you figure?

Considering what the other person has to say. Not painting the other person as a crazy extremist. Not using ridiculous hyperbole. Not presuming that the other person is simply refusing to read and sincerely respond to what others say.

If you feel I have been unfair in the characterization above, I welcome correction. But I'm not going to budge on the "blow that up" line, nor the "if you consider the other person" line. Both of those have painted me as being violently unwilling to even participate in conversation when that's literally all I asked for to begin with.