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

Justice and Rule said:

If you have 200 pages of lore, maybe it's time to reboot things and try something new. Or hell, allow for new and interesting things. Seriously, I've never seen a worse reason for "We should let the GM dictate this" than "Have you seen how big this lore bible is?"

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Only 200? The Grand History of Eberron alone is like 500 pages all on its own.

Page count doesn't matter, the only question of importance is if the GM is allowed to say no or not. If the GM can say no then they have that option and the player needs to adapt their character to become acceptable to the gm's game or bow out themselves

Mecheon said:

Tortles are tortoise guys so they'd be fine in Dark Sun by my count.

Now, Snappers, the chaotic counterpart to the Tortle who, unlike them, can swim? Yeah, they'd be in a bit of trouble in Dark Sun

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Might be fun to make a race of Silt Sea Tortles.

Maxperson said:

Might be fun to make a race of Silt Sea Tortles.

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Pretty sure everything but umm... Silt skimmers(?) just sinks to the bottom and silt is not very breathable

AlViking said:

My game goes back to the late 20th century so more than 20 years. Since I store all my details and game logs online I don't know how many pages it would be but if I included all the character stories people have written, all the reference material? Not sure how long it would be. I'm playing with someone who threw all their data into an LLM and created a resource that requires a binder.

I don't expect anyone to know any more than the basics I can go over briefly in a session 0 and I drop little bits of lore here and there, but I still use it as a reference. Heck, I still have the original map I made in colored pencil on graph paper. Just because you don't have that does not mean no one does.

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I've been a player in the same campaign since 1990, playing the same character. It's set in Greyhawk. One player joined about 15 years ago and the other three about 25 years ago, again all with their original characters except one who changed his character a couple of years ago. There is a huge amount of history and background, mostly recorded in the session logs the GM writes but I'm sure he also has various notes as well.

It doesn't mean that new ideas have to be curtailed and only things in the prewritten notes can ever be allowed.

soviet said:

Since when has the GM had 200 pages of lore going back 20 years? Is this like The Shining where it's just 'Absolutely No Turtlemen' over and over again? You keep adding details to the hypothetical to make the player seem unreasonable.

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What are you talking about. I am giving a concession to your inability to answer the question, basically by saying I understand how people think of this question as nuanced. That was a purely hypothetical DM and situation, just like the one right after that - the one where the player bought a mini, painted it, hand painted a portrait of their character, and bought a journal to match. And I mean no insult with this question, but do you understand hypotheticals and why they are used?

tetrasodium said:

Pretty sure everything but umm... Silt skimmers(?) just sinks to the bottom and silt is not very breathable

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And now silt sea tortles!!!

Maybe they have the psionic ability to swim in it.

soviet said:

I've been a player in the same campaign since 1990, playing the same character. It's set in Greyhawk. One player joined about 15 years ago and the other three about 25 years ago, again all with their original characters except one who changed his character a couple of years ago. There is a huge amount of history and background, mostly recorded in the session logs the GM writes but I'm sure he also has various notes as well.

It doesn't mean that new ideas have to be curtailed and only things in the prewritten notes can ever be allowed.

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We have plenty of new ideas, the campaigns frequently go in directions I don't anticipate. They change the world through the actions of their characters not through collaborative world building.

tetrasodium said:

Pretty sure everything but umm... Silt skimmers(?) just sinks to the bottom and silt is not very breathable

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You do realize sea turtles do not breath water?

Justice and Rule said:

Yeah, I really relate to this. The whole idea that the PCs are in your world going through your story is foreign to me. I tried doing that when I was younger and they just didn't work; it took some time before I realized that I'm not telling my story, but helping my players tell theirs that people really started to enjoy and invest in my games.

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Or it can be both. The two are not mutually exclusive. If that was the case, I guess when people play Adventure Paths they aren't really playing in your eyes.

Justice and Rule said:

If you have 200 pages of lore, maybe it's time to reboot things and try something new. Or hell, allow for new and interesting things. Seriously, I've never seen a worse reason for "We should let the GM dictate this" than "Have you seen how big this lore bible is?"

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Again, that was a hypothetical because people can't seem to answer a question. They have asked for nuance. They have asked for the why. I keep saying it doesn't matter, and that includes having 200 pages of lore.

But since we're on that. Do you really believe at 200 pages of lore someone should stop investing in their worldbuilding? So all worldbuilders should stop. I guess Ed Greenwood should have stopped building the Forgotten Realms after year one. Here's the thing, some people like to dive deep. Others like to float around and never look under the water. Both are okay. Both can be fun. But neither one is wrong. If someone wants to dive thousands of feet down, let them. There are always areas to develop, ideas to navigate, and world logic to explore. And that is what it is for a DM who builds a world, an exploration.

I am adding this as an edit: Most of the great stories I have played in as a player have come from deep lore dives into a DM's world. I felt a great gravity on my character's shoulders because I felt the world, its cultures, people, and environments. I have had great stories without it too, but the gravity came from my character's feelings towards the other PCs at the table. When I had both, it was magical.

Justice and Rule said:

Yeah, I really relate to this. The whole idea that the PCs are in your world going through your story is foreign to me. I tried doing that when I was younger and they just didn't work; it took some time before I realized that I'm not telling my story, but helping my players tell theirs that people really started to enjoy and invest in my games.



I dunno, I often find it's DMs that are way guiltier of that critique than anyone. Like, GMs who want to tell their story regardless of player actions, who want to keep their chosen characters alive because they need to, who have their GMPC who everyone is secondary to, to want to make sure everything follows the lore and canon of their world... I'm not saying that players can't have main character syndrome, but there are just so many more ways for GMs to really fall into that trap. Hell, I definitely fell into that last one as a younger GM.

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First, I don't see how it's much different than running a game in any other world built by anyone else. Are adventures in my home brew world really that different from games run in FR or Eberron or Darksun? As far as the campaign itself it's just like any other campaign. In my case it's a very open-ended game with the players always choosing the direction and what to pursue. I'm not telling "my" story any more than any other DM.

I don't have collaborative world building outside of minor stuff for character backstories because I've been using the same campaign world for a long time. I let people know before they ever join my game what the restrictions are they can always decide not to accept the invitation. While I enjoy world building I do it in service to my players and because I want depth to my world.

As far as DMs telling their story, I've never run into it. Some DMs do linear campaigns and most published campaigns are pretty linear, but that's different.

Justice and Rule said:

I mean, I think there is way more nuance there, but you could probably just put the counter as "Because I don't want to" given how the arguments here go? Like, I think the biggest problem I've seen from the "GM shouldn't given in" part is not really based around some sort of reason that comes from how the game will be played, but more out of resistance to the GM giving ground. The "Take it or leave it" attitude is... honestly wild to me as a guy who constantly GMs, because I find not letting the players own a bit of the world like that largely makes players disinterested in the game they are playing.

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I was summarizing because it all just comes back the same arguments. Obviously there's more nuance and I didn't claim otherwise. But why is the player any different? They have a preference, I have preferences. Meanwhile I have a world I'm happy to run games in and most players, myself included, are quite flexible on what character they play. I don't have a take it or leave it attitude, I have a "This is my game if it sounds good come join us" attitude.

You like collaborative world building, go for it. I wouldn't want to play in that kind of game and no one over the decades has ever expressed an interest. If it was important to them, I might not be the right DM for them. I stopped trying to be the right DM for everyone a long time ago and I find that I'm a better DM for it.

Justice and Rule said:

If you have 200 pages of lore, maybe it's time to reboot things and try something new. Or hell, allow for new and interesting things. Seriously, I've never seen a worse reason for "We should let the GM dictate this" than "Have you seen how big this lore bible is?"

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Maybe it's just stuff that helps me run a better game. We all have different approaches.