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

[AlViking]

So, this reads as, "I, the GM, get to discard your reasons (mechanical, worldview, or cultural influences) as invalid, so you cannot have it."

That is a bogus way to collaborate.

Proper negotiation would acknowledge the player reasons as valid, rather than discard them. And we'd also note the specific problems the GM has with tortles, and the ways they violate the game premises.

We then see if a way that allows a maximum of what the player wants, while engaging the fewest things the GM doesn't want, ends up palatable to both.

I don't do collaborative world building nor would I be interested in joining such a game. The players do of course change the world through their characters. If you're talking about compromise then sure we can talk but compromise requires give and take from both sides. I've been repeatedly told that anything less than allowing a tortle PC is unacceptable and for many apparently makes me a control freak.

I don't have a specific issues with tortles but I've had dozens of players in my game world over the years and if someone introduces a new species it's established as a core playable species. Given my druthers I would never play much less run a kitchen sink world because I have a hard time taking it seriously. I want species to mean something more than a rubber mask and that's already hard enough to do with a curated list. Doesn't matter to me if anyone else accepts that as a valid reason and if that means a person is so fixated on a single species and is unwilling to give at all on the concept that's fine by me.

 

[AlViking]

Well, it would be kinda weird to be that self-denigrating, right? That's way past humility and right into self-abuse.

But that's the accusation thrown at DMs that have a curated list.

 

[Maxperson]

Your mistake was making it halflings. In my experience if you make it elves everyone would be handing you character sheets before you finished the sentence.

Except for that one guy that we're talking about here. He hands you a half-elf.

 

[Maxperson]

My wife’s Halfling Musketeers game has long been a fan favorite among ENWorlders.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm just repeating the answer given on this forum by more than one person. To be honest it's how I pick my species most of the time if I play an FR game. Why did I play a tabaxi? Because I wanted to play Puss in Boots.

Hey. That's giving a reason.

My setting has cat people because of a Credit card commercial.

War kittens??!!!

gimme a reason. It can be a silly one.

I let someone play a dogfolk monk because he got distracted by a dog and wrote dog as his class.

"You are a dog now. From the Dog islands

So, this reads as, "I, the GM, get to discard your reasons (mechanical, worldview, or cultural influences) as invalid, so you cannot have it."

That is a bogus way to collaborate.

Proper negotiation would acknowledge the player reasons as valid, rather than discard them. And we'd also note the specific problems the GM has with tortles, and the ways they violate the game premises.

We then see if a way that allows a maximum of what the player wants, while engaging the fewest things the GM doesn't want, ends up palatable to both.

I'm not discarding a reason.

I havent been provided with one that isn't just self referencing.

 

[Maxperson]

If you burn down a village, the government that controls the region investigates what happened. When they realize it's a group of dangerous individuals, those individuals are dealt with. Especially if you kill a chicken just for the hell of it.

Hey! My divinations need a component gosh darnit!

 

[Thomas Shey]

What kind of GM needs a statblock just to run a NPC? Just improvise!

That's probably fine if you only think you'll need them once. More than that I'd like a little consistency.

 

[TwoSix]

But that's the accusation thrown at DMs that have a curated list.

I know. I made the accusation, remember?

 

[Mort]

Curious - can you give a short version of the arc and how or if being a dragonborn played into it?

I would say being a Dragonborn, didn't play into it itself - being "other" did a bit.

He went with the adopted angle. Grew up as the adopted son of local blacksmith.

Fell in with a group when they banded together helping save lives when an awoken Demigod was rampaging through the city (he was delivering horse shoes to the stable of a local inn when things went sideways). I had been itching to do an "in medias res" start to a campaign, and it worked out great!

We had a lot of fun with the the further he got from the town (where he was known, so no one have him a second look anymore) the more people reacted to a 7' tall Dragonborn. Until he got to the city of Grey hawk, where people again barely reacted to him again.

He really made hay out of the blacksmith bit, and I let him run with it. He and the group became the owners of a mine that had Adamantine - which led to great places.

By the end of the arc he and the rest of the group were exploring the world in their acquired flying ship, and had "accidentally" freed a Greyhawk Lich (Lich variant that possess bodies) and his horde, all occupying construct bodies (which eventually led to Warforged in my Greyhawk) and the epic conclusion to that problem.

The fact that he was a Dragonborn led to a lot of small interactions but nothing to the overall in arc itself, it's his contribution that was interesting and cool. Honestly, I had thought of introducing a family arc or somesuch. But things moved so well organically that it never even came up.

 

[TwoSix]

That's probably fine if you only think you'll need them once. More than that I'd like a little consistency.

So write it down after the session? Writing down what happens during the session isn't "prep".