D&D General Wildly Diverse "Circus Troupe" Adventuring Parties

[Scribe]

D&D has canonically allowed reptilian (dragons), undead (vampires) fey (nymphs, satyrs, and hags) and all manner of planar (fiends, angels and genies) to produce viable offspring. Biological compatibility in D&D is more a guideline than an actual rule...

Yeah, I default to 'A God made it happen.' Any other path is both madness, and slightly (or majorly) gross.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I default to 'A God made it happen.' Any other path is both madness, and slightly (or majorly) gross.

"A wizard did it" is also a decent explanation.

 

[The Firebird]

For me this falls under "not paying attention". If during some role playing some detail is discovered, I'm not going to 'remind' a player two hours later. In my game you remember it yourself, or even better write it down. I loathe the casual player that just sits back and relaxes and does not even attempt to pay attention to anything. Then when something comes up the player is like "hey DM I've been goofing around on my phone for the last two hours, tell me the name of that king because my character would know."

This view has come under criticism. I wonder how people feel about the same approach to dungeon mapping? E.g., the GM does not provide a map, and if the players don't take notes and get lost, that's on them. That seems more accepted to me, but I'm not sure if there is a core difference between the GM not giving their players a map and not reminding their players of all the in world details.

Maybe just scope? The dungeon is limited, the world is complicated.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It's an Elf game. Real biology need not apply.

But by what degree are mammals still pigmentally challenged compared to reptiles?
do humans start as grubs and spin a cocoon and grow into humans?

we all to a degree, lessen that amount of the mundane but still keep bits of it in for sanity reasons.

D&D has canonically allowed reptilian (dragons), undead (vampires) fey (nymphs, satyrs, and hags) and all manner of planar (fiends, angels and genies) to produce viable offspring with humans. Biological compatibility in D&D is more a guideline than an actual rule...

also true

 

[Swarmkeeper]

This is such an interesting one to me. I have had DMs who are clear and concise and brief. Sometimes they get asked a lot of questions afterwards, sometimes not. I have had DMs that are a bit superfluous, yet very detailed. Sometimes they lose players and get asked a lot of questions afterwards, sometimes they keep the players engaged and get no questions.

The scene dictates the amount of description. The DM dictates how it is described.

And the DM creates the scene so... kind of going around in a circle.

In any case, you make a good point. There're no guarantees either way. While I have "no questions" as a goal with my short descriptions, I realize I'm never going to experience zero questions. It's a goal that is always just out of reach but I don't actually find it frustrating - and not getting frustrated by player questions is the really important part - I just use the frequency of questions as an indicator that I will need to up my game with my descriptions next session.

Kinda like those tables that prioritize "balance." They'll never actually achieve it. /ducks

 

[Scribe]

But by what degree are mammals still pigmentally challenged compared to reptiles?
do humans start as grubs and spin a cocoon and grow into humans?

Yeah, this is what I mean. It's nonsense.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

But back to the OP...

It depends on the campaign.

For our Curse of Strahd West Marches campaign, we set the limitation that it was "humanoids only" and "no monstrous" species at the time. Presumably, PCs could be sucked into Barovia by the Mists from pretty much anywhere in the multiverse but Strahd wasn't really interested in kobolds, goblinoids, yuan-ti, etc. Although, eventually the DMs caved and let one player play a kobold.

For our current Wildemount campaign, players picked a hometown and rolled to determine their species based on the prevalence in that town. Each chart has a certain percentage of "other" which allowed the player to pick any species found anywhere in Wildemount. Of the 10 players, two actually rolled "other". One chose a Tortle and the other picked a Human!

 

[Scott Christian]

And the DM creates the scene so... kind of going around in a circle.

In any case, you make a good point. There're no guarantees either way. While I have "no questions" as a goal with my short descriptions, I realize I'm never going to experience zero questions. It's a goal that is always just out of reach but I don't actually find it frustrating - and not getting frustrated by player questions is the really important part - I just use the frequency of questions as an indicator that I will need to up my game with my descriptions next session.

Kinda like those tables that prioritize "balance." They'll never actually achieve it. /ducks

Good point. The DM does create the scene. That said, there are times the story calls for a heavy narrative. I remember writing this one description of a ritual the adventurers were watching. They were guests, and the ritual was not evil, a lot of hints at culture and some foreshadowing to their future expedition if they chose to accept the job. I thought, "Just stop. This is way too long." It was about half a page, maybe a bit more. I stuck with it, and when the scene played out, the players loved it. To this day, they recall it and the how it set the tone for the entire city they were in.
So, I misinformly thought this was the way to go. And the next time I did it with a different group (and scene), it bombed. I lost them and there were a hundred questions. The point is, I agree with you, but I think I might add the crafting of the description might also come into play. (And the DM who is reading it!)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wonder how people feel about the same approach to dungeon mapping

The same. A lot of players are really bad at drawing. Others are bad at learning faux-history. D&D is about players having fun, not being forced to do things they hate.

I generally prepare hand coloured battlemaps, because I’m good at that. It’s less effort for me to draw it myself than describe it.

 

[TiQuinn]

This view has come under criticism. I wonder how people feel about the same approach to dungeon mapping? E.g., the GM does not provide a map, and if the players don't take notes and get lost, that's on them. That seems more accepted to me, but I'm not sure if there is a core difference between the GM not giving their players a map and not reminding their players of all the in world details.

Maybe just scope? The dungeon is limited, the world is complicated.

For games that rely on PC's to map the dungeon, it's often an adventure design point to deliberately attempt to confuse the players and make mapping difficult. But the difference there is - that is an adversarial approach that is supposed to be part of the fun of that kind of game play style.

The other example is more of a interpersonal conflict that has nothing to really do with the game but is playing out at the table, which to me is not conducive to a great game experience.