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

AlViking said:

What case? The "compromise" has always been "Let me play a tortle and this is how you can include them in your world". It's not compromise, it's demanding capitulation with ideas on how to capitulate.

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I'd say if some of the suggestions ("Let's come out with a way to have one as a stranger from Somewhere Else") is "demanding capitulation" to you, your definition of "compromise" is so rigid it doesn't mean anything.

tetrasodium said:

Quite the opposite. My local AL community has a huge number of them and a big part of it is because they aren't treated like they should be ashamed of it like you just implied. They keep showing up being nerdy d&d players. There is a whole lot of coded language like anthropomorphic that gets used by those players to check for acceptance and I've seen quite a few examples that look to very very much be channeling the same stuff throughout the thread in the tortle or bust posts.

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Fair enough, in that case it simply seems like quite a stretch, even if it wasn't intended to be insulting. I don't see any value in trying to tell people they have secret, hidden motivations for the things they're saying; if we can't assume that people are saying what they mean then the entire conversation is pointless. I do know I don't appreciate it when people say to me, "If you are saying X, I assume you really mean something else you're not actually saying."

TwoSix said:

We should recognize that some game systems are better for some styles than others.

If you’re playing Dolmenwood, you absolutely should NOT be cosmopolitan and allow a bunch of weird races.

If you’re playing D&D, you absolutely should. D&D is meant to provide a wide amount of options to the players and use setting frames that support that diversity.

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Wait . . . Dolmenwood? The setting with species options like mosslings, breggles, grimalkins, and woodgrues? Yeah, don't play anything weird in a Dolmenwood campaign!

AlViking said:

The answer boiled downto "DM capitulates an allow a new species. Here's how." That's not compromise, that's telling the DM what to do.

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And to the people wanting to play one who want a specific look and feel "Here, play this other thing that seems close enough to me" is telling them what they want and what matters. That's not compromise to them, that's telling them to throw away what are to them, important elements of what they want. And here we are.

I think it's also relevant who your players are. I only play with friends and we have a longstanding group. If I describe a campaign premise, and a player signs up to it, when they start talking to me about playing a turtleman my assumption is that i) they have a cool idea in mind, and ii) they have thought of how to integrate it into the setting/premise. Therefore my starting position is to try to be open minded and see if there is a way to make it work.

It also seems to me that using language like 'capitulation' betrays something important about how that person sees the power dynamic of their game.

SableWyvern said:

Fair enough, in that case it simply seems like quite a stretch, even if it wasn't intended to be insulting. I don't see any value in trying to tell people they have secret, hidden motivations for the things they're saying; if we can't assume that people are saying what they mean then the entire conversation's pointless. I do know I don't appreciate it when people say to me, "If you are saying X, I assume you really mean something else you're not actually saying."

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Either way it at least provides some understandable justification that explains why the tortle keeps circling back to "no because it's not a tortle" for basically any effort to suggest some middle ground that could fit a setting. If that's not the cage... great! that immediately raises the question of why and there hasn't really been any effort to fill in that blank

mamba said:

not really, these were suggestions for how they could play a tortle. Given that playing a tortle was the initial idea, nothing was being compromised

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The art of compromise is to.get other people to agree with you and feel good about it.

I never got an actual answer to my question: if I DO give up my Tortle, what is in it for me? If you say "a seat at the table" that was part of the initial pitch, I have my seat thank you. So let's play a little game. If tortles (and apparently gunslingers) are out of the question, what about my dhampir mage? What about letting me playtest something from UA like the revised necromancer or the psion? Maybe I can play a 3pp class like Level Up's marshall or CRs blood hunter? Maybe I get a tangible benefit in game like a noble title or a legacy weapon that levels with me. I'm giving up on my primary character concept to satisfy you, what are you giving to satisfy me?

tetrasodium said:

Either way it at least provides some understandable justification that explains why the tortle keeps circling back to "no because it's not a tortle" for basically any effort to suggest some middle ground that could fit a setting. If that's not the cage... great! that immediately raises the question of why and there hasn't really been any effort to fill in that blank

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I think it's much safer to conclude that the conversations circles back to, "because I want to" not because everyone wants to conceal their furriness, but because no one in this thread actually wants to play a tortle, and thus has no ready answer to, "Why do you want to play a tortle?" Others already identified this some time ago.

SableWyvern said:

I think it's much safer to conclude that the conversations circles back to, "because I want to" not because everyone wants to conceal their furriness, but because no one in this thread actually wants to play a tortle, and thus has no ready answer to, "Why do you want to play a tortle?" Others already identified this some time ago.

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I agree on some level
, but that also results in a self nullifying reason that can be equally applied to both sides where it immediately cancels out for both and we go back to looking for an reason with some actual level of reasonability just to avoid dismissing "because I want to" as an entirely unreasonable position incapable of any middle ground adaptation or compromise.

Scott Christian said:

Those are all great reasons to want to play a tortle. And you are correct, if that is the only DM you play with, and they don't allow tortles, then you will not get a chance to play one. And you are correct, some DMs never switch up their world. So, you're stuck.

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Correct. Which is one of the many reasons I gave up homebrewing for a rotating series of settings depending on the game.

Scott Christian said:

But, you are not stuck with this. You can find different groups. Even moderate cities of 50,000 people have many groups. Game stores exist. If you are the rare exception of living in the small town with no options (like some small Alaskan village with no internet), then your DM should let you. But let's face it, that is a very rare occurrence in a world where thousands of online groups exist, thousands of in-person groups exist, paid groups exist, and groups start up every week from scheduled play.

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The Internet has made finding a game easier, buts it's not order a pizza easy. I live in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area and I don't see a large call for open tables. I guess there is AL at my local FLGS, but it's a very different style of play than home games.

It really depends on how comfortable you are with playing with complete strangers.

Scott Christian said:

And it is false that you are "abandoning my current group." You can play with two groups. One, where your tortle fits in, and one where your tortle is not allowed.

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How much free time do you think I have with work and family? I'm lucky I fit one group in!

Scott Christian said:

And please, stop being dramatic. It's not about whether people are "your friends." Friends can disagree about playstyles. We used to all the time when we were young. "Too many magic items," from one DM. "You can't play an orc in a Middle Earth campaign," from another. "I want to play this system," and "I want to play this other system," from someone else. "Leave the sci-fi out of it," from a player. "I want more sci-fi," from a different player. That happens all the time. Deal with it. Play for six months in a system you don't like or a sci-fi campaign. It will not kill you. In fact, it might even help you appreciate it.

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Yeah, when I was young, everyone tried their hands at DMing, but only two people were long term DMs, myself and one other guy who is the source of many of my Bad DM stories. So for years my options was DM or play something that catered to his whims. And his whims were unstated and mercurial. (He once decided druids were stupid. He didn't ban them outright, but he made it so hard to play one it was an exercise in frustration. He also has a weird hangup on characters being a different gender than the player and would actively discourage cross gender PCs). It wasn't until I moved away to college that I found a stable DM who was chill with everything and the game was glorious. So good that even when I moved back home after college, I could play in the old DMs group but our styles had changed so rapidly that we butted heads constantly. It would take him a decade to come around to a style I enjoyed again.

But even today, after playing with probably a dozen different DMs and half-dozen different systems, I've seen enough to know what I want from a game and what is a red flag for me. And that starts at chargen because I refuse to have my fun determined by the DM deciding cat people are stupid.