D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Ruin Explorer]

Sooner or later if players keep rejecting the pitch the GM has to admit that what's being pitched is somehow inferior.

Obviously incorrect.

The main determinant of what people accept re: campaign pitches and RPGs is taste, not quality.

You could pitch my wife on a superhero campaign a thousand times with a thousand different systems, and you'd get "No" every time because that's how she feels re: supers.

You could pitch two of the other players in the main group on a relationship-centric, no combat RPG any number of times, with any quality of RPG, and you're always still going to get no.

Also, players don't generally know the quality of RPGs before they play them. One of my players convinced me to run Shadowrun 5E, for example - but we eventually gave up because the rules were pretty awful. Yet the pitch was successful because we didn't know the rules were awful.

Anyway, it's obviously and objectively incorrect to suggest that rejection of pitch means the pitch is "somehow inferior". It actually is far more likely to be mean the pitch is inappropriate for the target audience.

 

[ezo]

But you aren’t arguing for compromise. You’re arguing that the players accept with what the GM proposes regardless of what they want.

And, let’s be real here. Even if the GM has to « grit their teeth » and accept a game in which the players are more powerful then they would like, the GM gets their way in 90% of the game decisions. If the GM proposes a swashbuckling epic, the campaign is likely going to be a swashbuckling epic.

IME there is rarely really any compromise. For myself, the DM calls the shots. When I play I accept that without reservation. If the DM doesn't offer something I want, I walk away.

As DM I expect the same. After seeing the RK in action, I won't allow another without some nerfage. Period. The subclass just has too much going on for it compared to other subclasses pre-Tasha's. It's a pity, really, that the designers didn't avoid power creep.

Anyway, I have no qualms about a player bowing out, either, if what I offer isn't to their liking. I have told players that in the past--when it became clear to me their style and desires didn't align well with mine or the others in the group.

 

[ezo]

I think it would have been significantly less problematic in this case, because with 16 STR (or DEX) and no offensive Feats, he'd be noticeably bad at damaging people (or causing conditions on them) compared to the 20 Primary Stat and probably at least one offensive Feat that the other PCs had. It'd have pushed him more towards the "hard to kill but doesn't do much" side of things, which is a lot easier to handle as a DM I think.

Well, with some of the other RK features he never had to take offensive feats really. For a long time he was also the prime damage dealer. Certain the STR 20 helped, but even STR 16 probably would have been enough to keep him effective.

I agree, however, it is hard to tell in the long run how it would have made things much easier or only slightly so.

I've played 5E with rolled stats and without - rolled are really fun but they absolutely throw balance out the window, for better or worse (they do open up some interesting multiclass build possibilities and so on though).

Actually, every one rolled pretty good stats. The Rogue current has DEX 20, INT 14, and WIS 16, along with CON 14. By the end of the game he'll be looking at INT 16 or WIS 18.

It's about how you play the PC, not just the features you possess. RK is unusual in that it has a feature just for protecting other PCs at all (and a pretty good one).

It is one of those features where when it worked it as potentially awesome, but otherwise sort of meh (thankfully!).

But on top of that, if you are very hard to kill, you can do stuff, you can put yourself in situations, which mean that the enemies have to pay attention to you, or naturally will, rather than targeting more vulnerable PCs. That's why I say "skill issue". He was, from the sound of things, more focused on showing how badass he was rather than playing as part of a team.

Not really... his part of the team was being the tank. Unfortunately for the others, when creatures had a hard time hitting him or taking him down, they focused on everyone else who was more "squishy" (much to their regrets).

It was 9 - 3 At Will, 3 Encounter, and 3 Daily - I don't think that was an accident either, I think it was very much intentional.

Sometimes there were ways you could kind of get more, but that took some effort. IIRC the later-added classes which didn't follow the AEDU structure almost all lead to the PC having fewer abilities to consider.

9 even at level 20? If so, that sounds pretty good as a base structure to me.

The only issue I take with the AEDU concept is that it seems so "forced" and gamey. One of my favorite concepts is "recharge" features. It makes things unpredictable. I've always liked the idea of reducing HP (removing HP bloat), but allow easier/ faster HP recovery between encounters. This way the individual encounters become more of a threat instead of waiting for attrition to kick in.

 

[AlViking]

My answer is changing the rules of the game, either by using a different base, adding 3pp support, or making my own. It certainly isn't, "Get over it. There's nothing you can do. Pretend this doesn't bother you so your players get what they want".

So then you already have an answer that works for you why ask the question you did?

 

[Micah Sweet]

But you aren’t arguing for compromise. You’re arguing that the players accept with what the GM proposes regardless of what they want.

And, let’s be real here. Even if the GM has to « grit their teeth » and accept a game in which the players are more powerful then they would like, the GM gets their way in 90% of the game decisions. If the GM proposes a swashbuckling epic, the campaign is likely going to be a swashbuckling epic.

I still stand by the idea that if the GM isn't enjoying the game, you won't have a good game. That doesn't mean that the GM always gets what he wants, but both sides need to be happy. A GM who's gritting his teeth ain't happy

 

[Micah Sweet]

So then you already have an answer that works for you why ask the question you did?

For other people who might have problems using my solution for one reason or another. Its mostly academic for me personally.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I'm not talking about just upping the challenge, I'm talking about changing the rules.

Players argue far more against rule changes that go against their characters than they do against rule changes that benefit their characters. It's simple human nature. But, arguments are hard on the DM. Therefore, if the game's made hard by default and leaves room for the DM to ease it off, there's less argument if-when she does and thus it's easier on the DM than making it easy by default while leaving room to toughen it up.

Not sure where this comes from.

Or this.

That's in large part a GM failing to hit the curveball thrown by the players.

That said, why did the players join that game in the first place? Or was it pitched as one thing and then run as another?

 

[AlViking]

For other people who might have problems using my solution for one reason or another. Its mostly academic for me personally.

Then you could have just given advice like how you repeatedly praise level up. As it is, it seems like you were trying to set up a gotcha question whether that was the intent or not.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then you could have just given advice like how you repeatedly praise level up. As it is, it seems like you were trying to set up a gotcha question whether that was the intent or not.

Fair enough. I react poorly to the response to having problems being, "Get over it. There's nothing to be done".

 

[FrozenNorth]

I have yet to mention 5e specifically, in either version, so I'm not sure where this comes from.

So when you respond to @EzekielRaiden :

I was in retail my whole career and believe me, you can only put so much lipstick on a pig before you have to just admit it's a pig and stop promoting it.

What are you referring to?