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

[TwoSix]

At the end of my last campaign I asked the group without qualifying it in any way what we wanted to do next. Everybody just sort of looked at me and said they trusted me to do something fun and exciting without a single suggestion. I guess my hypnosis abilities must be better than I thought if the majority of players secretly want collaborative world building.

There are a ton of players who want games where they don't have authorship responsibilities. I won't deny that.

I'm glad you found a player group correlated to your interests.

 

[TwoSix]

does it matter whether this is a published setting or someone’s homebrew?

I also doubt most players read through the FR Campaign Setting book or whatever its equivalent is for another setting, so ‘shared’ really means the two page summary by the DM

It matters to me. And I've already explained why I think it should matter to "Generic GM reading this thread."

And again, different experiences. More than half the people I play with have spent considerable time in the GM chair. A bunch of us are familiar with quite a few settings.

 

[Belen]

My players received a 1-page character creation guide with a description of the campaign. They use that to decide if they want to play. Often, I may have 2-3 ideas that I am willing to run and will present them with an option.

Curated species and added mechanics are always part of the initial pitch. The added mechanics are always extras I add for the players. The curated species guide always have more options than the PHB but never all options.

I am fine with this approach and have never seen a single complaint. Have people asked me to work with them on options, sure. I will do my best to accommodate concepts but sometimes it does not work out and my players have always been ok with that too.

 

[TwoSix]

Neither one of us can "prove" anything. But I have not nor will I ever tell you that my way is better, something you do on a regular basis.

That is true, that is something we do differently.

I'm assuming you feel your way of communication is better?

 

[Mort]

G

Which is the cause of a lot of problems. A lot of DMs are too precious about their creations, and don’t want those irritating players messing it up. Hence all the ways they try to limit player freedom.

Playgrounds are built for children to enjoy. If the designer starts designing it to amuse themselves they are doing it wrong.

The quickest ways to drive me from the campaign is to show nothing the PCs do matter!

When I DM, one of the things I like most is watching the PCs influence and even completely upend/blow-up the world I have presented to them. If I haven't made sure to present plenty of opportunities to do so, I believe I'm doing it wrong!

 

[tetrasodium]

I have every published setting connected in a loose multiplayer framework precisely to alleviate those kinds of concern. There's plenty of room for Asmodeus and devils within Fernia, Shavarath, Mabar, etc.

I'm sure that you and your players enjoy your choice to run eberron like that...

AAAAAAnnnnnnnyyyyywwwwwayaaaayyyssss

I run Eberron partly BECAUSE it shields the game from ThatGuy who thinks that having read every drizzt novel & then some entitles★ them to use that player knowledge in place of character knowledge and share it across the group. In fact I've even seen ThatGuy respond to me answering a second (much newer) player's lore check by saying "no that's not right" & then proceed confuse the newer player by telling them how what really happened was the dwarves came along first & then were invaded by giants so that writing should use dwarvish runes.

Because of that choice I made long ago I was able to tell the newer player thatmy fellow grognard was citing lore from a different setting called forgotten realms with dozens of books dedicated to it that she doesn't need to find read or be expected to remember when a successful knowledge check can tell her what her character knows or thinks they know.
★Definition one, again.
⚝ Situation & specific check doesn't matter, player sked what kind of characters were used by some ancient writing left behind by the giant empire of xendriik. I explained how the giant empire of xendriik was found by the dragons & basically uplifted by aurelonastrix along with the other dragons before eventually collapsing under the weight of an extraplanar invasion from the plane of dreams... thus the writing on the wall should be in draconic glyphs borrowed by the giants similar to how early japanese writing had chinese characters used to write very much not chinese and a woman's script syllabary using chinese ideograms that chinese people would see as complete gibberish if they didn't know japanese/onnade or if it was some unique alpha/sylla/ideobet developed by the giants.

edit: I think this was an AL game at a local FLGS but don't remember the adventure or if it was something made up after that group finished something like LMOP set in eberron & set off to adventure more.

 

[AlViking]

That is true, that is something we do differently.

I'm assuming you feel your way of communication is better?

I think being open to different approaches, at least trying to have a conversation, not insulting or denigrating other approaches is better, yes.

 

[tetrasodium]

G


The quickest ways to drive me from the campaign is to show nothing the PCs do matter!

When I DM, one of the things I like most is watching the PCs influence and even completely upend/blow-up the world I have presented to them. If I haven't made sure to present plenty of opportunities to do so, I believe I'm doing it wrong!

I agree but would also add getting nothing of value from questions like "I as a player don't know if xyz seems reasonable to my PC or if my character knows something that would make more sense to them." I don't care if the answer has a bad (but interesting) result but it's especially irksome when one player is pretty much anointed as the one everyone else in the party says "Oh I'm waiting to see what he does". IME it tends to result in absurdities like the wizard taking point during exploration & the fighter trying to decide what to do with obviously arcane things.

 

[Zardnaar]

Then ENWorld, GitP, Myth-Weavers, Reddit, Discord, Roll20, and at least two versions of the official WotC forums are unsafe.

Because I have seen this exact thing happen in every single one of those spaces. Yes, even here.

Except they dont actively punish you in any serious way.

I told you years ago you may need to run your own game and in essence train your own DM.
Your tastes are very different from most people.

That's not a problem or failing but reality.

Longer you leave it harder it gets. Im 47 now its kinda weird trying to recruit people in their mid 20's but its what's available in the greatest numbers.

Its not hard finding players. Its hard finding great ones.

 

[Zardnaar]

Are you familiar with the story of Isis?

She actively put the safety of the universe at risk in order to get Ra's ren, what we would call his "true name". When she received it, she became the most powerful deity in the pantheon, mastering magic, cosmological power, political power, and healing almost to the point of being able to restore the dead. Later interpolations presented this as her getting this power solely to pass it on to her son Horus (especially with the whole "Ra-Horakhty" thing, since Horakhty was Horus in the aspect of the rising sun), but as best as we can find in the early texts, there is no special association with her wanting to power up her son. She did it out of ambition, a thirst for knowledge, and certainty that she was the correct choice for that power. Because she spearheaded the development of mummy embalming, she was also seen as a psychopomp, a deity responsible for guiding the dead to their rightful place, and for keeping the dead in their rightful place. She was frequently invoked both as a shield against ill fortune or ill health, and as a guiding star when escaping from such things. Fate, Death, Life, Magic, Power.

That's who your Egyptian Raven Queen is. It's Isis.

Which, I mean, that's sort of the point I've been trying to make here. Even many things that seem profoundly irreconcilable often are very reconcilable indeed....if only you're willing to do some digging. For my players, I am always willing to do that digging. And that's why they trust my judgment, accept my rulings, and eagerly participate in my games. They don't need to accept on faith that I'm doing this for them. They can literally see it, week in and week out, in my actions.

The GM must earn their players' trust. They don't deserve it just because they declared they were going to sit behind the screen. All that? All the hard work and careful preparation and improvisational acumen? That's just what permits them to sit behind the screen. You want trust as a GM, you earn it, by actually showing your players that it makes you happy when they're happy. By actually showing them that your goal IS their happiness--not that your goal is your own happiness, with the coincidental side benefit that it might make a player happy.

That's not the point. Im not interested in a player trying to justify their desires. Im more interested in players enthusiastic to play an Egyptian themed game.

Turned out it was really easy to find those players. Egyptian theme was popular.

I had taken a break for a year+ at that point didn't have a group.