D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[saviirkad]

My general preference in terms of being a collaborative DM is that I don't really see any reason for my restricted list of D&D species to be anything other than the species the players are requesting to play. There's already so much of the world that is mine to define and build without input. If my five players tell me five or fewer species they're wanting to play as, and I am wanting a more focused, slimmed down world to design, then it's down to those species that I'll restrict it to.

Exceptions to this will be based on the mechanics of what we are running, such as an upcoming LotR 5e game.

 

[Scribe]

Let me ask you: how many species are playable in your current game?

Behold, the platonic ideal.

Spoiler

6 Ancestry options, 4 Classes.

Now how many choices do I have?

Even with your hypothetical restrictions? Plenty. Thousands of combinations?

Let me ask you: how many species are playable in your current game? 10? 7? 4? 1? If the number is less than what is currently in the PHB of your choice, why can't you find even one new option out of the hundreds available to replace it with? I could create a world with 10 species and never touch the PHB. If you can't find 10 possible species that fit your world that are PC friendly, I do think your vision for your game is too narrow for me to have fun with. Because that narrow a world doesn't allow for discovery and is hemmed in on all sides by the DMs personal preferences and my character is an afterthought.

I could (and have) found or created other options, but thats not the point. The point is that a few restrictions are not a 'narrow' 'limited' vision. It may be a singular vision. A focused vision. A carefully considered vision, and maybe you do not want to play within that vision, and thats absolutely fine, but it certainly seems that you put yourself above the game, above the vision for that game, and that without the DM bending the knee to your particularly 'narrow' vision of having the many or exact options you have arbitrarily decided that you require, then you cannot have fun.

Which is totally fine of course.

 

[Mecheon]

6 Ancestry options, 4 Classes.

There's a reason there's alternative ancestry options and classes already out there for Shadowdark. If it was 'ideal', people wouldn't re-invent classes immediately

Like there is an entire popular market of people just doing more ancestries and classes for it. In brief glancing around I found an addon that adds both legally distinct Dragonborn and Ducks at the same time, to say nothing of new classes like druid and the fact there's creators out there so respected they're just automatically included into character builders, ala Kibbles for D&D

I could (and have) found or created other options, but thats not the point. The point is that a few restrictions are not a 'narrow' 'limited' vision. It may be a singular vision. A focused vision. A carefully considered vision, and maybe you do not want to play within that vision, and thats absolutely fine, but it certainly seems that you put yourself above the game, above the vision for that game, and that without the DM bending the knee to your particularly 'narrow' vision of having the many or exact options you have arbitrarily decided that you require, then you cannot have fun.

If the DM's position on me playing a stock basic race for the game (not even a strong one, I'd be far more suspicious of a human player power-gaming), a race so stock and basic at this point the D&D minifigure set from Lego included one, is proclaiming they're 'bending the knee' to allow it, then you'd better believe I'm not playing their game and looking elsewhere. That's also in the same way if I see a sign saying "Warning: Road ahead unsafe", I'm not driving a car down there

If they're that hard set on things then there's only going to be disasters later down the line if you try to do something as simple as go to somewhere off the beaten track of the railroad they're going to be dragging you on

 

[Scribe]

There's a reason there's alternative ancestry options and classes already out there for Shadowdark. If it was 'ideal', people wouldn't re-invent classes immediately

No its still the ideal. Just because its easy (and it very obviously is) to add to it, does not mean that its foundation is not the ideal.

If they're that hard set on things then there's only going to be disasters later down the line if you try to do something as simple as go to somewhere off the beaten track of the railroad they're going to be dragging you on

That does not track at all, but hey you do you, everyone has a different view on what a 'narrow vision' looks like.

 

[Minigiant]

There's a reason there's alternative ancestry options and classes already out there for Shadowdark. If it was 'ideal', people wouldn't re-invent classes immediately

That part.

 

[SableWyvern]

If people can only enjoy a game if there plenty of options to pick from, that's certainly their prerogative. We like what we like, and that's entirely fair enough. I hope such people find games (and GMs) that have complementary preferences.

However, I don't understand why people then have to turn around and say that if a GM wants to run a game with tighter focus than their preference, that GM has limited vision. Or the fact that the GM has a clear idea what kind of game they want that differs from your personal preferences instantly means you should worry that the GM wants to railroad the players. Why not just accept that different people can like different things, without having to try and convince everyone that different preferences are signs of incompetence or classic bad GMing?

Heaven forbid a GM is all excited about the idea of running a humancentric, Conanesque game. What an instant red flag!!! If such a game isn't for you, maybe just don't play it?

 

[Azzy]

Like there is an entire popular market of people just doing more ancestries and classes for it. In brief glancing around I found an addon that adds both legally distinct Dragonborn and Ducks at the same time, to say nothing of new classes like druid and the fact there's creators out there so respected they're just automatically included into character builders, ala Kibbles for D&D

Ducks. I'm just imagining the infamous Drake Mallard and his Quack Commandos.

 

[Minigiant]

I have a Space D&D game. The races and classes are limited.

There are no Dwarves.

If you wanted to play Dwarf because you like tough stout warriors, it has the Brown Dragoniods of Kalak 1-5

If you like being Scottish, where Planet Earth has Scotland and New Edinburgh is on Mars.

If you like being Poison resistant, the Green Dragoniods are. And I'll let you RP being drunk.

Points is the DM should provide some options to replace the ones removed. Either as direct analogs or entirely new replacement entries.

But if you remove a lot, it's up to you to sell the setting. If a player can't find something interesting in your setting, one of you are messing up.

 

[Minigiant]

Heaven forbid a GM is all excited about the idea of running a humancentric, Conanesque game. What an instant red flag!!! If such a game isn't for you, maybe just don't play it?

As long as the DM allows for enough options that the prayers are still the ones making the choices on character creation.

If in the DMs excitement they only allow for Human fighters, thieves, and a nerfed wizard... that is choose to breaking the D&D social contract. If not doing so.

 

[SableWyvern]

Points is the DM should provide some options to replace the ones removed. Either as direct analogs or entirely new replacement entries.

Adding things just because you adhere some axiom that says you must is liable to result in some incoherent settings. Mongoose d20 Conan removed all the racial options other than human and many classes from 3e D&D -- far more in number than it added. If they'd decided, "OK, we need to add in twelve* new options that are analogues or replacements for what we took out," I can't see any realistic way that would have made the game any better, and it certainly would have risked making it worse.

*The number 12 seems about right, but I haven't gone back and checked for an exact figure.

But if you remove a lot, it's up to you to sell the setting.

From where I'm sitting, it's always the case that a GM who wants to run a game in a given setting needs to sell that game to the players. Whether things are added, removed, changed or are straight out of some official book doesn't make any difference to that underlying truth.