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

Paul Farquhar · Jan 5, 2026

AlViking said:
Tortles look pretty ridiculous to me

So probably try a bit of honesty, and lead with that, rather than trying to excuse your prejudice with settings based justifications. Then the people who like tortles can go join a different game.

Maxperson · Jan 5, 2026

Paul Farquhar said:
There doesn’t need to be any more than one tortle. One thing about the TMNT is there are only four of them - and none of them are female.

This response has nothing to do with what he was saying. He's saying that there's a difference between 0 and 1, not asking how did that one get there.

TwoSix · Jan 5, 2026

Maxperson said:
I don't agree with that definition. Almost every DM I know also worldbuilds when PCs head to a location that has no or minimal information about it. Worldbuilding happens all the way up through the end of the campaign.

Worldbuilding is when the DM and/or players add to the world. If the PCs build a castle, that has changed the world in a small way. If the DM creates and places a dungeon somewhere that hasn't been fleshed out yet, that's worldbuilding. It doesn't have to happen prior to the first session.

And that's fine, but yea, I don't agree with your definition either. Making up a new site for the PCs to encounter isn't what I would classify as "worldbuilding". That's just gameplay.

There needs to be a specific term for the defining of the campaign frame prior to start of play/Session Zero, and possibly inclusive of Session Zero if character creation has world-impacting decisions involved.

AlViking · Jan 5, 2026

Paul Farquhar said:
So probably try a bit of honesty, and lead with that, rather than trying to excuse your prejudice with settings based justifications. Then the people who like tortles can go join a different game.

If I wanted to run a kitchen sink campaign like FR tortles would be allowed. I don't ban tortles because of the way the look, they aren't on my curated list of species.

I agree that if you want to play something not on my list they should look for another game. Which is why I include my restrictions in my invitations.

Maxperson · Jan 5, 2026

TwoSix said:
And that's fine, but yea, I don't agree with your definition either. Making up a new site for the PCs to encounter isn't what I would classify as "worldbuilding". That's just gameplay.

I think you improvise a whole lot, so perhaps that's coloring your view. If you improvise the dungeon during a session, that's to me both world building and gameplay, but I could see it being just labeled gameplay. If I'm creating it several sessions before the group gets there, there's no gameplay happening. I'm at home building up the world, otherwise known as worldbuilding.

TwoSix said:
There needs to be a specific term for the defining of the campaign frame prior to start of play/Session Zero, and possibly inclusive of Session Zero if character creation has world-impacting decisions involved.

Why? What's wrong with worldbuilding being used for all building up of the world, whether by the DM alone or via gameplay?

Maxperson · Jan 5, 2026

mamba said:
no we don’t, that never was the rationale for rejecting the tortle to begin with…

Nor did anyone say or imply that saying no is how they are having fun.

Remathilis · Jan 5, 2026

AlViking said:
.The last person who asked to play a species not on the list was in 4e. They wanted to play a deva and we made it work.

I was going to ask why you let the deva in despite your hard-line species, but I think found the answer.

AlViking said:
Tortles look pretty ridiculous to me.

TwoSix · Jan 5, 2026

Maxperson said:
I think you improvise a whole lot, so perhaps that's coloring your view. If you improvise the dungeon during a session, that's to me both world building and gameplay, but I could see it being just labeled gameplay. If I'm creating it several sessions before the group gets there, there's no gameplay happening. I'm at home building up the world, otherwise known as worldbuilding.

Yea, that probably does color my view. Once the game has actually started, I'm not really touching the world anymore outside gameplay.

Maybe make a change then to say if it's happening "away from the table", then we can call it worldbuilding. But there's a bright shiny line that divides things that happen during the game from *stuff we do away from the table".

AlViking · Jan 5, 2026

Remathilis said:
I was going to ask why you let the deva in despite your hard-line species, but I think found the answer.

The deva was able to pass as human and I figured out a way for the in-world explanation to work. Meanwhile I don't have any issues with how tieflings look, they aren't allowed either.

Maxperson · Jan 5, 2026

mamba said:
I would have said at least @Remathilis and @GobHag, but apparently for the former that was more bad memory, they said since they were willing to compromise, just not on looks

There was also the guy who said that if orcs were allowed for him to play, he would be doubtful that the DM allowed any freedoms anywhere else.

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

Paul Farquhar

Legend

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

TwoSix

The Year of the TwoSix

AlViking

Legend

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Remathilis

Legend

TwoSix

The Year of the TwoSix

AlViking

Legend

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

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