Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 2588312" data-attributes="member: 26473">I haven't heard anyone say anything of the kind - what I have read is that fun for one group may not be fun for another."Fun" is a moving target in this context.Conversely the GM's fun is contingent on the players' fun - everyone in the game should be enjoying themselves.That doesn't mean that every single thing that everyone at the table would like to see will be included in every game. I may think that it would be fun for run a rogue who's a second-story man, spending all of my time in the city burgling rich merchants, but if the rest of the players and the GM are headed off on a dungeon crawl or a wilderness trek, then my thief will join the rest of the adventurers and dream of stolen rubies until next they return to town.As a player you do have input into the world - your character may well shake the world to its literal foundations over the course of several campaigns, to the point of doing battle with the gods themselves.However, if the GM says there are no elves in the setting, there are no elves.You can certainly ask for anything you want - you should not have an expectation of getting it just because you asked, however.Yes, the GM is entitled to your acquiescence if you join the GM's game.You are not obligated to play in that game. Once you join the game however, you do agree to submit to the GM's vision of the setting. You can certainly ask if your character can take this feat or that prestige class, but you do not have the right to get twisty about it if the GM says no nor do you get to decide if the reason is "good enough" or not. That is the GM's perogative. Your perogative is to leave if the game isn't working for you at that point.That a GM is provided with this role in the game is contingent on presenting something that the players will enjoy, which generally means offering the player interesting options for classes and races, writing an variety of adventures types such as dungeon crawls and wilderness treks and artistocratic intrigue, and creating an immersive setting filled with interesting places, creatures, and peoples. The fact that a GM can severely limits player options doesn't make it a good idea in many cases, nor does it mean that players are in any way obligated to play that GM's game.This quote is the crux of the matter. Kamikaze Midget, there is a fundamental disconnect here between what you believe and what the core rules say: whole sections of the DMG describe campaign- and world-building, including choosing the classes, races, and deities that fit the setting that the GM creates. That is the rules as written: there is no "should" with respect to character classes, there is no "valid" other than what the GM indicates is appropriate for the game.Your argument falls apart when you insist that one set of rules (character classes, monster races, core-book deities) trumps another set of rules (world-building, the GM's role). The DMG suggests that there are a couple of different ways to approach encounter development. To paraphrase, one is the tailored approach, in which encounters are crafted to challenge the party's abilities, and the other is the status quo approach, in which the world exists as it is and the party must adjust to meet it.I personally favor the latter approach which means in this context if the party is deficient in one or more areas of expertise, it's up to the players to find ways to strengthen their weaknesses. I don't pull my punches if the players don't create a well-rounded party of adventurers.The idea that a party of wizards should run around and never encounter a high AC opponent would destroy the verisimilitude of the setting for me as a player or GM.*sigh*It may surprise you to know that I recently did exactly this: we changed games based on the fact that the players wanted to try something different. I was running a historical fantasy game: one of the players really loved the genre, another found it interesting, but two others were feeling a little lost - they were having trouble with the historical aspects of the game, so it was making it difficult to relate to their characters and roleplay them the way they wanted to. When we concluded our last adventure, I suggested trying something different, a future/apocalypse game instead. We started it last weekend, and the first adventure went really well.Do I think this is how it "should" work? Yes, and most definitely no.Yes, the GM should offer a game that players want to play, unless the GM wants to sit home alone on Saturday night. This is the broad brush stroke.Most definitely no, in that "should" as it's used here implies an expectation and an obligation on the part of the GM to make the campaign an amalgam of what players want to see, a POV that is simply unsupported by the rules themselves. This is the fine penwork.A couple of the players expressed the opinion that playing a more contemporary game would be fun, and I obliged them with a post-apocalypse game - that is the broad stroke. The game is based on a variety of Seventies movies such as Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Zardoz, and so on - if one of the players wanted to play a mutant character with six arms, the answer would be no, as mutations are not available to the adventuerers at the start of the game, based on setting considerations. This is the detail work.So what's my point? The game is a social contract: the GM offers a game that entices players to join, and the players accept the GM's vision for the setting. It's a reciprocal relationship. If I understand you correctly, you would call this a compromise, but I disagree - no one compromises anything in this instance. It is rather a reflection of their mutual interest.</blockquote>

Verification