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

[AlViking]

Of course they're going to get expectations from BG3, why wouldn't they? This is the biggest entry point they've had since the original Baldurs Gate. "Hey here's Dungeons and Dragons on your computer, featuring all of the famous Dungeons and Dragons things around. Look, squid people and flying cats". This is what the movies were supposed to be, and the latest movie actually succeeds at doing, unlike the originals

What do you think they'd get their expectations from instead? Fantasy doorstoppers are out and romantasy is in, and lemme tell you, I do not trust most DMs to try and use romantasy as a setting theme.

The other place they're going to get it from is Skyrim, and by the sound of it, the idea of tabaxi and lizardmen replacing dwarves and halflings as stock races is going to blow people's heads wide open


You provide the 'curated' list earlier which was the dull, boring, stock standard 2e base game option list. Not even any slightly exotic stuff like aquatic elves


Could I play an expy of Urag from Skyrim? He's a pretty simple thing

1: A non-evil orc
2: An orc wizard. Pretty smart.
3: Collects books

That's all you need to play as Urag. D&D supports all of this completely stock right now. Could I play that in your campaign? This stock, easy, Dungeons and Dragons supported character?


Sounds like a problem with your campaign if it can't handle such stock, simple Dungeons and Dragons ideas. People will come at your game with stuff like Skyrim being touch points so of course they'll want ideas inspired from there


I love you've just ignored how completely and utterly halflings are demolished in that chart. Look at that, they're not even a fraction of Dragonborn's majesty

My games are anything but boring. If species is more important to you than any other consideration I'm not the DM for you.

 

[mamba]

Either people are allowed to have red lines in their acceptable compromises or they aren't.

of course they are, but that is true for both sides and if there is no common ground, then the player is not in the DM's campaign

 

[AlViking]

And again, you've suggested player capitulation is a compromise when its not.

You really don't get to have it both ways. Either people are allowed to have red lines in their acceptable compromises or they aren't.

I was trying to find something that gave the player almost everything they wanted without giving them something I don't want. That's what makes it a compromise even if people aren't willing to accept 99% and will only accept 100%.

 

[Mecheon]

Dragonborn, the fraction of the pretty races? That majesty?

You think those results are surprising?

On one end, you have the pretty options, on the other end, the mega short ones.

"Hmm, I wonder whats happening here..."

If players are getting their expectations from BG3, its "I want to be the hot character."

7.5 million is a pretty strong number, certainly doing laps around halflings

And no, I don't think its surprising. But with people insisting "Oh, gotta stick with the stock ones", having tieflings and dragonborn so thoroughly demolishing halflings is showing, yeah, no, new races absolutely attract attention and are popular enough to stand by themselves. This has well and simply proven it because if you showed someone that chart and then said "Yeah we're going to cut the 4th and 6th most popular option (also probably the 5th one as well given how people are about drow) and instead promote the dead last option like its actually important", you'd be laughed at. Long live Dragonborn and Tieflings, death to the "Gotta just have humans, various half humans, halflings, gnomes, elves and dwarves" paradigm.

People getting their expectations from there means they're expecting Tieflings and Dragonborn, and I know for a fact there's a lot of people who have problems with both of them. Behold, player expectation

My games are anything but boring. If species is more important to you than any other consideration I'm not the DM for you.

As that list shows, aesthetics is hell of important factor into why people will pick something. Everyone agrees Dragonborn don't have great stats as a player race, so there sure aren't at least 7.5 million BG3 Dragonborn running around due to stats..

Could I play Dragonborn or Tieflings, the 4th and 6th most popular options per the Baldurs Gate 3 options there? Or would you decide instead that, no, the popular choices should be ignored and instead the least popular choice of halflings should be factored instead?

 

[Scribe]

7.5 million is a pretty strong number, certainly doing laps around halflings

And no, I don't think its surprising. But with people insisting "Oh, gotta stick with the stock ones", having tieflings and dragonborn so thoroughly demolishing halflings is showing, yeah, no, new races absolutely attract attention and are popular enough to stand by themselves. This has well and simply proven it because if you showed someone that chart and then said "Yeah we're going to cut the 4th and 6th most popular option (also probably the 5th one as well given how people are about drow) and instead promote the dead last option like its actually important", you'd be laughed at. Long live Dragonborn and Tieflings, death to the "Gotta just have humans, various half humans, halflings, gnomes, elves and dwarves" paradigm.

People getting their expectations from there means they're expecting Tieflings and Dragonborn, and I know for a fact there's a lot of people who have problems with both of them. Behold, player expectation


As that list shows, aesthetics is hell of important factor into why people will pick something. Everyone agrees Dragonborn don't have great stats as a player race, so there sure aren't at least 7.5 million BG3 Dragonborn running around due to stats..

Could I play Dragonborn or Tieflings, the 4th and 6th most popular options per the Baldurs Gate 3 options there? Or would you decide instead that, no, the popular choices should be ignored and instead the least popular choice of halflings should be factored instead?

I allow the real, pre 4th edition Tiefling, yes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

of course they are, but that is true for both sides and if there is no common ground, then the player is not in the DM's campaign

As I've noted, I don't think that's the question here. I think @SableWyvern was much closer to it in his post upthread.

 

[SableWyvern]

7.5 million is a pretty strong number, certainly doing laps around halflings

And no, I don't think its surprising. But with people insisting "Oh, gotta stick with the stock ones", having tieflings and dragonborn so thoroughly demolishing halflings is showing, yeah, no, new races absolutely attract attention and are popular enough to stand by themselves. This has well and simply proven it because if you showed someone that chart and then said "Yeah we're going to cut the 4th and 6th most popular option (also probably the 5th one as well given how people are about drow) and instead promote the dead last option like its actually important", you'd be laughed at. Long live Dragonborn and Tieflings, death to the "Gotta just have humans, various half humans, halflings, gnomes, elves and dwarves" paradigm.

People getting their expectations from there means they're expecting Tieflings and Dragonborn, and I know for a fact there's a lot of people who have problems with both of them. Behold, player expectation


As that list shows, aesthetics is hell of important factor into why people will pick something. Everyone agrees Dragonborn don't have great stats as a player race, so there sure aren't at least 7.5 million BG3 Dragonborn running around due to stats..

Could I play Dragonborn or Tieflings, the 4th and 6th most popular options per the Baldurs Gate 3 options there? Or would you decide instead that, no, the popular choices should be ignored and instead the least popular choice of halflings should be factored instead?

These questions seem to imply that @AlViking should be curating his game to appeal to the widest possible fraction of the BG3 playerbase, rather than the handful of people he actually has at his table.

This feels like another large part of the disconnect. A number of people seem to be arguing for mass appeal, to people who have a stable group with a set of expectations everyone is already happy with. I don't and never have drawn my players from the wider pool of TTRPG gamers, so what the "community" wants or likes or is popular has never had any impact on what we do.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I was trying to find something that gave the player almost everything they wanted without giving them something I don't want. That's what makes it a compromise even if people aren't willing to accept 99% and will only accept 100%.

But they aren't insisting on 100% in some of the cases I saw. Its just that the 1% you're fussy about is also the 1% they are. Your red lines have a gap between them.

 

[Moving Pictures]

You don't even have orcs as a playable race. Colour me incredibly suspicious that your game has any freedom at all

That's a broad brush. I have orcs. I even have stories of Orcish rangers working with the Allied Races during the third Hillbeast Wars.
I have orcs as very culturally deep, with strong underpinnings of honour - at least in the northern subspecies. The southern orcs are having issues with a large-scale movement to a deity of general treachery, misdeeds and other things. The northern ones are territorial, and clash with the Oesir (nordic human) and Firgald (germanic human) on occasion, but aren't downright nasty... mostly.
But they're not PCs - at least not yet. Why?
I'm keeping the door open on a story arc where suitably powerful PCs do a Star-Trek Undiscovered Country thing and bring the northern Orcs into the Allied Races. This would then allow the option of PC orcs in the future.

For the story.

Sounds like a problem with your campaign if it can't handle such stock, simple Dungeons and Dragons ideas. People will come at your game with stuff like Skyrim being touch points so of course they'll want ideas inspired from there

Definitions. Once again, you're forgetting that this is a tapestry. I don't have to use the entire palette to make a painting.

My games are anything but boring. If species is more important to you than any other consideration I'm not the DM for you.

This.
I've already got intrigue, sub-plot, treachery, manipulation, moral ambiguity, magical mysteries and the whole shebang - with elves, humans, half-elves and that's it.

Because we forget that the species aren't the story. The story is the story.

This feels like another large part of the disconnect. A number of people seem to be arguing for mass appeal, to people who have a stable group with a set of expectations everyone is already happy with. I don't and never have drawn my players from the wider pool of TTRPG gamers, so what the "community" wants or likes or is popular has never had any impact on what we do.

Bingo. I don't have to appeal to anyone but the four players at my table.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My point is a player bringing a character into play into an existing campaign needs to consider what other characters are already in play.

A point I can certainly grant. By that same token, however, this example kinda gives a good reason why leaning toward inclusive, even if you still restrict things, is wise. As GM, it makes your life a lot easier when collaborating with players (a collaboration which need not be rewriting your setting much if at all!), and as a player it makes you less likely to put stumbling blocks in front of other players.

Because like, what happens if we turn the tortle-hating example into something like, the party coincidentally was made up of one halfling, two elves, and two dwarves, so one of the elves takes "Human" as her favored enemy, who hates spellcasters because an accident at Wizard college killed her brother. What happens when someone joins the group and wants to play a Human Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard, Artificer, etc.? Wasn't it kinda crappy of Miss Humanhater MacCasterkiller to create a character hostile to other players' choices?

Seems to me that it would behoove a GM to say "hey maybe don't hate entire PHB species and broad class categories" to that, because one of these concepts is just the individual player enjoying something, and the other is a player pursuing a preference which locks other players out of things, or actively makes other players unwelcome in the group. That seems like a pretty reasonable line to draw for when something crosses over from mere "preference" and into "problem". Of course, this comparison only works between two regular players, the reasoning doesn't directly apply to GMs.

Personally, I still find it so bizarre how GMs seem to want to nail down every square inch of their world, leaving no place with anything the GM doesn't already know to the smallest stitch. That doesn't sound like a setting to me; it sounds like a prewritten play that I get to watch unfold, I just happened to be allowed to name and voice one of the characters in it. I find it hard to see the difference between such incredibly restrictive "curation" and simply running down the rails of the GM's unpublished novel. It gives me the feeling that the GM isn't even remotely interested in anything I care about, and if there's ever a gap between what I want and what the GM wants, I will always be dismissed, shame on me for having wanted anything the GM wasn't offering. Etc.

It's fine to have a few bright lines. But such lines should be used extremely judiciously, only with significant forethought, deployed because there truly is an enormous gain for such a sharp cost. The way people talk about them, it seems like GMs want nothing BUT bright lines. They want rule systems that barely have rules at all, and campaigns so full of restrictions your choices are limited to like sixteen total. (Four races, four classes.)