D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[W'rkncacnter]

I personally think the better solution is to have

...have...what...?

 

[payn]

I legitimately wonder how many DMs actually take into account their players preferences when designing their campaign or world. For example, if a player likes furry species, would you provide a anthropomorphic option for them or do you adamantly keep to just the Tolkien style species? If a player tends to play spellcasters, would you still design a setting with limited magic? If a player likes dark and edgy characters but you dislike them, would you restrict tieflings and necromancers?

Id love to. Unfortunately, every time I ask I dont get anything helpful from my players.

Me: "What would you like in the game and setting?"
Them: "Oh...I dont know... stuff?"
Me:

 

[TwoSix]

Id love to. Unfortunately, every time I ask I dont get anything helpful from my players.

Me: "What would you like in the game and setting?"
Them: "Oh...I dont know... stuff?"
Me:

The sad truth is that players who don’t want to contribute require games with large amounts of GM force to make something workable.

A lot of people orient themselves around GM centrality precisely because they’ve only run for uninterested players.

 

[Remathilis]

Id love to. Unfortunately, every time I ask I dont get anything helpful from my players.

Me: "What would you like in the game and setting?"
Them: "Oh...I dont know... stuff?"
Me:

I mean, I know my players over the years and what they tend towards. One player always gravitates to the Big Damn Hero. His wife plays quirky comic relief. Another plays the weirdest option on the menu. The other will always play the brooding antihero. My last doesn't matter because he's shy and just happy to be there. So i know that my options should include a mix of quirky and badass. If I ran Lord of the Rings, my quirky players would be dissatisfied. If I ran Toon, my badasses would be bored to tears.

But that comes from 10 years of playing with the same or nearly same group and I take that into consideration when I pitch games.

 

[Remathilis]

The sad truth is that players who don’t want to contribute require games with large amounts of GM force to make something workable.

A lot of people orient themselves around GM centrality precisely because they’ve only run for uninterested players.

I think that's true of many players. They lack the language to express what they like. I'm sure if I asked all my players what they like, nobody would say what I just said about them. But I know what kinds of characters they have played in the past and I know what to expect even if they won't or can't say it.

 

[GrimCo]

I legitimately wonder how many DMs actually take into account their players preferences when designing their campaign or world. For example, if a player likes furry species, would you provide a anthropomorphic option for them or do you adamantly keep to just the Tolkien style species? If a player tends to play spellcasters, would you still design a setting with limited magic? If a player likes dark and edgy characters but you dislike them, would you restrict tieflings and necromancers?

I'll answer only for myself.

Last couple of years, i'm extremely picky about what i'm willing to run in D&D when it comes to longer campaigns. I pick player options i'm allowing in advance to fit my vision of the game world, theme and mood of the game, then i compile it into a short "sales" pitch, invite potential players to coffe, present them what i'm willing to run. If they like it, cool, we play. If one or two players want something i didn't include, i'm willing to have conversation and try find something which will make both of us happy. Sometimes, we can't and that's it, either they pick something else that fits or they don't participate in that campaign. If all of them want something not included, i'll just scrap campaign and let someone else run the game. Anthropomorphic animals are on top of my ban list. I don't like them at all and don't want them in my campaigns as a DM. Edgelords are close second. But as a player, don't have problem with either. If i want to run low magic, someone who wants to play spellcaster is out of luck ( mostly cause i'll use 5e LOTR classes).

Now, for short games, 1-4 session long, i'm anything goes guy type of DM. Play what you want, char op to hell, use broken combos with cheese galore as much as you want. Those are minimal worldbuilding, minimal prep games.

I have around two dozen friends and very good acquaintances who play D&D and we all live in same city. Only 5 of us are willing to DM. And i need 3-4 players only to get game running. So, yeah, i have luxury to be picky about what i'm willing to run and commit to running for 6-12 months. I pitch first to people who i think might like concept as is first. Then i pitch to others i would like to play with until seats get filled or i run out of people, at which point, campaign gets scrapped.

 

[Marc17]

Id love to. Unfortunately, every time I ask I dont get anything helpful from my players.

Me: "What would you like in the game and setting?"
Them: "Oh...I dont know... stuff?"
Me:

I usually have the other problem.

Me: What's up with the demonic dreams and strange events you mentioned when you told your backstory to everybody?
Them: That's for you to figure out and work into the game.

Still, there is usually only one player who comes up with those ideas and wants them filled out as personal plot. Everybody else is just sort of chill and happy to latch onto something I come up with and then ask for more of it.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The sad truth is that players who don’t want to contribute require games with large amounts of GM force to make something workable.

A lot of people orient themselves around GM centrality precisely because they’ve only run for uninterested players.

And then when new players join, they're spoon-fed everything regardless of whether they need it (as new players, they probably don't know how much they want to be spoon-fed anyways, so they don't object because they don't know better) and develop the habit of waiting for the dm to spoon-feed them in every dnd game.

It's similar to "adversarial dms create adversarial players who create adversarial dms" cycle and at least as hard to break.

 

[Maxperson]

If I go and pick up the latest version of Forgotten Realms and run a game in that, far more than 95% of the setting has been nailed down before ever encountering a player.

That's actually very, very far from true. Even the Realms, as detailed as it is, has less than 1% nailed down. There's swathes of open area where villages, towns and even cities can just be plunked down if the DM wants. The cities, even Waterdeep, has so many unnamed buildings that you can stick anything you want in there, and so many people you can create any organization you want to add to the world. And you can repeat that in ever city, town and village.

 

[Maxperson]

I legitimately wonder how many DMs actually take into account their players preferences when designing their campaign or world. For example, if a player likes furry species, would you provide a anthropomorphic option for them or do you adamantly keep to just the Tolkien style species? If a player tends to play spellcasters, would you still design a setting with limited magic? If a player likes dark and edgy characters but you dislike them, would you restrict tieflings and necromancers?

I do. At the end of a campaign we all pick 5 ideas for the next campaign. Then everyone looks at the ideas and can veto one of them, so the ones least liked are gone early. From the remaining 15 everyone assigns a number from 1-15 and the top 3 vote getters go to a final vote with the winner being what I work on for the next campaign.